Harold Jeffreys

Jeffreys, Harold 

Born Apr. 22, 1891, in Fatfield, Durham. British astronomer and geophysicist.

Jeffreys graduated from Cambridge University in 1914. He was a professor of astronomy at Cambridge from 1946 to 1958. His principal works are concerned with the earth’s structure, motion, and evolution. He constructed a curve for the travel times of seismic waves, which is widely used to determine the epicenters of remote earthquake focuses. Jeffreys studied the effect of the earth’s viscosity on the nutation constant and the properties of the layer of the upper mantle at a depth of about 400 km. He helped develop the hypothesis of the origin of the planetary system as a result of the collision of the sun with another star.

WORKS

The Earth, Its Origin, History and Physical Constitution, 2nd ed. Cambridge, 1929.

REFERENCES

Rein, N. F., and N. N. Pariiskii. “Katastroficheskie gipotezy proiskhozhdeniia solnechnoi sistemy.” Uspekhi astronomicheskikh nauk, 1941, vol. 2.
Fesenkov, V. G. Kosmogoniia solnechnoi sistemy. Moscow-Leningrad, 1944.