Printer Friendly
Dictionary, Encyclopedia and Thesaurus - The Free Dictionary
3,921,764,507 visitors served.
forum Join the Word of the Day Mailing List For webmasters
?
Dictionary/
thesaurus
Medical
dictionary
Legal
dictionary
Financial
dictionary
Acronyms
 
Idioms
Encyclopedia
Wikipedia
encyclopedia
?

Pickering, Edward Charles

   Also found in: Wikipedia 0.01 sec.
Pickering, Edward Charles, 1846–1919, American astronomer and physicist, b. Boston, grad. Harvard (B.S., 1865); brother of W. H. Pickering. He was professor of physics (1868–77) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and was the first in the United States to initiate general instruction in physics in a laboratory equipped with instruments and apparatus. The results of work in photographic photometry and spectroscopy done under his direction at the Harvard Observatory are recorded in more than a quarter of a million plates. Pickering devised several instruments, including the meridian photometer, used in the measurements. He set up a station in Arequipa, Peru, to observe the southern sky. In addition to editing 70 volumes (1855–1919) of the Annals of Harvard Observatory, he wrote Elements of Physical Manipulations (2 vol., 1873–76).
Pickering, Edward Charles (1846–1919) astronomer; born in Boston, Mass. (brother of William Henry Pickering). After graduating from Harvard's Lawrence Scientific School (1865), he taught physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1867–76) where he pioneered in teaching physics by emphasizing laboratory experiments. He then became the director of the Harvard College Observatory (1877–1919), where he pioneered in applying the knowledge and tools of physics to the study of stars—using photometry to calculate the magnitude of stars, using spectroscopy to study star composition. He supervised a large staff—many of them women—to catalogue and compute the magnitude of 80,000 stars and built up a collection of some 300,000 photographs of stars.
Pickering, Edward Charles 

Born July 19, 1846, in Boston, Mass.; died Feb. 3, 1919, in Cambridge, Mass. American astronomer.

Pickering was a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 1867 to 1877 and director of the Harvard Observatory from 1877 to 1917. His research was concerned chiefly with astrophotometry and stellar spectroscopy. Under his direction, a system by which stars could be classified according to their spectral characteristics was developed. With the American astronomer A. Maury, Pickering discovered the first spectroscopic binaries. He also studied variable stars.

REFERENCE

Baily, S. F. “Biographical Memoir of Edward Charles Pickering, 1846-1919.” Biographical Memoirs, 1934, vol. 15, memoir 5. (Contains bibliography.)


Want to thank TFD for its existence? Tell a friend about us, add a link to this page, add the site to iGoogle, or visit the webmaster's page for free fun content.
?Page tools
Printer friendly
Cite / link
Feedback
Mentioned in?   Encyclopedia browser?   Full browser?
No references found
 
 
 
Encyclopedia
?

Terms of Use | Privacy policy | Feedback | Advertise with Us | Copyright © 2012 Farlex, Inc.
Disclaimer
All content on this website, including dictionary, thesaurus, literature, geography, and other reference data is for informational purposes only. This information should not be considered complete, up to date, and is not intended to be used in place of a visit, consultation, or advice of a legal, medical, or any other professional.