Arthur Eddington begins his statistical study of stellar motions

Historical Context Note

Litencyc Editors (Independent Scholar - Europe)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.1.08: English Writing and Culture of the early Twentieth Century , 1900-1945.
Vol. editors: Chris Baldick (Goldsmiths College, University of London), Peter Childs (Birmingham Newman University), Louise McDonald (Birmingham Newman University), Andrew Radford (University of Glasgow)

Domains

Planetary Astronomy and Laws of Motion
Stellar Astronomy

Dates

Date of occurrence 1906

Places

United Kingdom (Location)

Resources

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Arthur Eddington was only a year out of his undergraduate studies in mathematics at Cambridge when he began a statistical study of the motions of stars. He used the principle of parallax, whereby an object will take two different apparant positions when viewed along two different lines of sight, to trace the real position of two stars which had seemed to drift when they appeared in the background of different photographic plates. This work won him the 1907 Smith Prize, and a Fellowship at Trinity College, Cambridge.

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Citation: Editors, Litencyc. "Arthur Eddington begins his statistical study of stellar motions". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 30 August 2013 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=6403, accessed 25 April 2024.]

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