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Henry Norris Russell
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Oral history interview transcript with Margaret Russell Edmondson on 21 April 1977, American Institute of Physics, Niels Bohr Library & Archives
- Margaret Russell Edmondson was Russell's youngest daughter {{DEFAULTSORT:Russell, Henry Norris 1877 births 1957 deaths People from Oyster Bay (town), New York American astronomers American astrophysicists Princeton University alumni Princeton University faculty People from Princeton, New Jersey Burials at Princeton Cemetery Recipients of the Bruce Medal Recipients of the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society Foreign Members of the Royal Society Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences Members of the French Academy of Sciences Scientists from New York (state)
ForMemRS
Fellowship of the Royal Society (FRS, ForMemRS and HonFRS) is an award granted by the judges of the Royal Society of London to individuals who have made a "substantial contribution to the improvement of natural knowledge, including mathematics ...
HFRSE
Fellowship of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (FRSE) is an award granted to individuals that the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Scotland's national academy of science and letters, judged to be "eminently distinguished in their subject". This soci ...
FRAS FRAS may refer to:
* Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society, post-nominal letters
* Fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland
Fellows of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland are individuals who have bee ...
(October 25, 1877 – February 18, 1957) was an American astronomer
An astronomer is a scientist in the field of astronomy who focuses their studies on a specific question or field outside the scope of Earth. They observe astronomical objects such as stars, planets, natural satellite, moons, comets and galaxy, g ...
who, along with Ejnar Hertzsprung
Ejnar Hertzsprung (; Copenhagen, 8 October 1873 – 21 October 1967, Roskilde) was a Danish chemist and astronomer.
Career
Hertzsprung was born in Frederiksberg, Denmark, the son of Severin and Henriette. He studied chemical engineering at Cop ...
, developed the Hertzsprung–Russell diagram
The Hertzsprung–Russell diagram, abbreviated as H–R diagram, HR diagram or HRD, is a scatter plot of stars showing the relationship between the stars' absolute magnitudes or luminosity, luminosities versus their stellar classifications or eff ...
(1910). In 1923, working with Frederick Saunders, he developed Russell–Saunders coupling, which is also known as LS coupling
In quantum mechanics, the procedure of constructing eigenstates of total angular momentum out of eigenstates of separate angular momenta is called angular momentum coupling. For instance, the orbit and spin of a single particle can interact th ...
.Obituary MNRAS 118 (1958) 311/ref>
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Life
Russell was born on 25 October 1877, atOyster Bay, New York
The Town of Oyster Bay is the easternmost of the three towns which make up Nassau County, New York, United States. Part of the New York metropolitan area, it is the only town in Nassau County to extend from the North Shore to the South Shore o ...
, the son of Rev Alexander Gatherer Russell (1845-1911) and his wife, Eliza Hoxie Norris.
After graduating from George School
George School is a private Quaker (Society of Friends) boarding and day high school located on a rural campus in Middletown Township, Bucks County, Pennsylvania ( Newtown postal address). It was founded at its present site in 1893, and has grown ...
in 1895, he studied astronomy at Princeton University
Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...
, obtaining his B.A.
Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four years ...
In 1897 and his doctorate in 1899, studying under Charles Augustus Young
Charles Augustus Young (15 December 1834 – 4 January 1908) one of the foremost solar spectroscopist astronomers in the United States. He observed solar eclipses and worked on spectroscopy of the Sun. He observed a solar flare with a spectr ...
. From 1903 to 1905, he worked at the Cambridge Observatory
Cambridge Observatory is an astronomical observatory at the University of Cambridge in the East of England. It was established in 1823 and is now part of the site of the Institute of Astronomy. The old Observatory building houses the Institute o ...
with Arthur Robert Hinks
Arthur Robert Hinks, CBE, FRS (26 May 1873 – 14 April 1945) was a British astronomer and geographer.
As an astronomer, he is best known for his work in determining the distance from the Sun to the Earth (the astronomical unit) from 1900 to ...
as a research assistant of the Carnegie Institution
The Carnegie Institution of Washington (the organization's legal name), known also for public purposes as the Carnegie Institution for Science (CIS), is an organization in the United States established to fund and perform scientific research. Th ...
and came under the strong influence of George Darwin
Sir George Howard Darwin, (9 July 1845 – 7 December 1912) was an English barrister and astronomer, the second son and fifth child of Charles Darwin and Emma Darwin.
Biography
George H. Darwin was born at Down House, Kent, the fifth chil ...
.
He returned to Princeton to become an instructor in astronomy (1905–1908), assistant professor (1908–1911), professor (1911–1927) and research professor (1927–1947). He was also the director of the Princeton University Observatory from 1912 to 1947 where Charlotte Moore Sitterly
Charlotte Emma Moore Sitterly (September 24, 1898 – March 3, 1990) was an American astronomer. She is known for her extensive spectroscopic studies of the Sun and chemical elements. Her tables of data are known for their reliability and are st ...
helped him measure and calculate the properties of stars.
He died in Princeton, New Jersey
Princeton is a municipality with a borough form of government in Mercer County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. It was established on January 1, 2013, through the consolidation of the Borough of Princeton and Princeton Township, both of whi ...
on 18 February 1957 at the age of 79. He is buried in Princeton Cemetery
Princeton Cemetery is located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. It is owned by the Nassau Presbyterian Church. John F. Hageman in his 1878 history of Princeton, New Jersey refers to the cemetery as "The Westminster Abbey of the United State ...
.
Family
In November 1908 Russell married Lucy May Cole (1881-1968). They had four children. Their youngest daughter, Margaret Russell (1914-1999), married the astronomer Frank K. Edmondson in the 1930s.Published work
Russell co-wrote an influential two-volume textbook in 1927 withRaymond Smith Dugan
Raymond Smith Dugan (May 30, 1878 – August 31, 1940) was an American astronomer and discoverer of minor planets. His parents were Jeremiah Welby and Mary Evelyn Smith and he was born in Montague in the U.S. state of Massachusetts.
His undergr ...
and John Quincy Stewart
John Quincy Stewart (September 10, 1894 – March 19, 1972) was an American astrophysicist.
He obtained his Ph.D. in physics from Princeton University in 1919. He taught astrophysics at Princeton from 1921 until he retired in 1963.
Stewart ...
: ''Astronomy: A Revision of Young’s Manual of Astronomy'' (Ginn & Co., Boston, 1926–27, 1938, 1945). This became the standard astronomy textbook for about two decades. There were two volumes: the first was ''The Solar System'' and the second was ''Astrophysics and Stellar Astronomy''. The textbook popularized the idea that a star's properties (radius, surface temperature, luminosity
Luminosity is an absolute measure of radiated electromagnetic power (light), the radiant power emitted by a light-emitting object over time. In astronomy, luminosity is the total amount of electromagnetic energy emitted per unit of time by a st ...
, etc.)
were largely determined by the star's mass and chemical composition, which became known as the Vogt–Russell theorem The Vogt–Russell theorem states that the structure of a star, in hydrostatic and thermal equilibrium with all energy derived from nuclear reactions, is uniquely determined by its mass and the distribution of chemical elements throughout its interi ...
(including Heinrich Vogt who independently discovered the result). Since a star's chemical composition
gradually changes with age (usually in a non-homogeneous fashion), stellar evolution
Stellar evolution is the process by which a star changes over the course of time. Depending on the mass of the star, its lifetime can range from a few million years for the most massive to trillions of years for the least massive, which is cons ...
results.
Russell dissuaded Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin
Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin (born Cecilia Helena Payne; – ) was a British-born American astronomer and astrophysicist who proposed in her 1925 doctoral thesis that stars were composed primarily of hydrogen and helium. Her groundbreaking conclus ...
from concluding that the composition of the Sun is different from that of the Earth in her thesis, as it contradicted the accepted wisdom at the time. He realized she was correct four years later after deriving the same result by different means. In his paper Russell credited Payne with discovering that the Sun had a different chemical composition from Earth.
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Awards and honors
* Fellow of theAmerican Academy of Arts and Sciences
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and ...
(1921)
* Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society
The Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society is the highest award given by the Royal Astronomical Society (RAS). The RAS Council have "complete freedom as to the grounds on which it is awarded" and it can be awarded for any reason. Past awar ...
(1921)
* Lalande Prize
The Lalande Prize (French: ''Prix Lalande'' also known as Lalande Medal) was an award for scientific advances in astronomy, given from 1802 until 1970 by the French Academy of Sciences.
The prize was endowed by astronomer Jérôme Lalande in 180 ...
(1922)
* Henry Draper Medal
The Henry Draper Medal is awarded every 4 years by the United States National Academy of Sciences "for investigations in astrophysics, astronomical physics". Named after Henry Draper, the medal is awarded with a gift of USD $15,000. The medal was ...
from the National Academy of Sciences
The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nati ...
(1922)
* Bruce Medal
The Catherine Wolfe Bruce Gold Medal is awarded every year by the Astronomical Society of the Pacific for outstanding lifetime contributions to astronomy. It is named after Catherine Wolfe Bruce, an American patroness of astronomy, and was firs ...
(1925)
* Rumford Prize
Founded in 1796, the Rumford Prize, awarded by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, is one of the oldest scientific prizes in the United States. The prize recognizes contributions by scientists to the fields of heat and light. These terms ...
(1925)
* Franklin Medal
The Franklin Medal was a science award presented from 1915 until 1997 by the Franklin Institute located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S. It was founded in 1914 by Samuel Insull
Samuel Insull (November 11, 1859 – July 16, 1938) was a Bri ...
(1934)
* Janssen Medal from the French Academy of Sciences
The French Academy of Sciences (French: ''Académie des sciences'') is a learned society, founded in 1666 by Louis XIV of France, Louis XIV at the suggestion of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, to encourage and protect the spirit of French Scientific me ...
(1936)
* Foreign Member of the Royal Society
The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...
(1937)
* Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh
The Royal Society of Edinburgh is Scotland's national academy of science and letters. It is a registered charity that operates on a wholly independent and non-partisan basis and provides public benefit throughout Scotland. It was established i ...
(1938)
* Henry Norris Russell Lectureship The Henry Norris Russell Lectureship is awarded each year by the American Astronomical Society in recognition of a lifetime of excellence in astronomical research. The idea for the lectureship came from then society President Harlow Shapley in 1945, ...
(1946)
* asteroid
An asteroid is a minor planet of the inner Solar System. Sizes and shapes of asteroids vary significantly, ranging from 1-meter rocks to a dwarf planet almost 1000 km in diameter; they are rocky, metallic or icy bodies with no atmosphere.
...
1762 Russell
References
External links
*Oral history interview transcript with Margaret Russell Edmondson on 21 April 1977, American Institute of Physics, Niels Bohr Library & Archives
- Margaret Russell Edmondson was Russell's youngest daughter {{DEFAULTSORT:Russell, Henry Norris 1877 births 1957 deaths People from Oyster Bay (town), New York American astronomers American astrophysicists Princeton University alumni Princeton University faculty People from Princeton, New Jersey Burials at Princeton Cemetery Recipients of the Bruce Medal Recipients of the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society Foreign Members of the Royal Society Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences Members of the French Academy of Sciences Scientists from New York (state)