Johann von Lamont,

FRSE 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 ...

(13 December 1805 – 6 August 1879), born John Lamont, was a Scottish-German

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 ...

and

physicist A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate caus ...

Biography

Lamont was born at

Corriemulzie Corriemulzie is a locality on Mar Lodge Estate, Aberdeenshire, Scotland. Corriemulzie lies on the Linn of Dee road about 3 miles west of Braemar. The locality includes the Corriemulzie Burn that flows through the Linn of Corriemulzie, and under ...

near

Inverey Inverey (; gd, Inbhir Eidh) is a hamlet on Mar Lodge Estate, in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. Description The hamlet straddles the Ey Burn close to its confluence with the River Dee. Inverey comprises two 'communities' separated by the Ey Burn � ...

Aberdeenshire Aberdeenshire ( sco, Aiberdeenshire; gd, Siorrachd Obar Dheathain) is one of the 32 Subdivisions of Scotland#council areas of Scotland, council areas of Scotland. It takes its name from the County of Aberdeen which has substantially differe ...

, Scotland. The son of Robert Lamont (forester to

Earl Fife The title Earl Fife was a title in the Peerage of Ireland created by letters patent dated 26 April 1759 for William Duff (1696–1763) after asserting (but not proving) his descent from Macduff, the medieval Earl of Fife. Though in the Irish pe ...

) and Elizabeth Ewan, his education began at the local school in

, near

Braemar Braemar is a village in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, around west of Aberdeen in the Highlands. It is the closest significantly-sized settlement to the upper course of the River Dee sitting at an elevation of . The Gaelic ''Bràigh Mhàrr'' prop ...

. In 1817 his father died and John was sent to be educated at St James' monastery (Scots Benedictine College) at

Ratisbon Regensburg or is a city in eastern Bavaria, at the confluence of the Danube, Naab and Regen rivers. It is capital of the Upper Palatinate subregion of the state in the south of Germany. With more than 150,000 inhabitants, Regensburg is the f ...

, Germany. He began to work in astronomy and joined the

Bogenhausen Bogenhausen (Central Bavarian: ''Bognhausn'') is the 13th borough of Munich, Germany. It is the geographically largest borough of Munich and comprises the city's north-eastern quarter, reaching from the Isar on the eastern side of the Englischer ...

Observatory, became its director in 1835, took his doctorate of philosophy in 1830 and became professor of astronomy in 1852 at

Munich University The Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (simply University of Munich or LMU; german: Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München) is a public research university in Munich, Germany. It is Germany's sixth-oldest university in continuous operatio ...

. At the observatory he undertook the task of creating a star catalog that had about 35,000 entries. In 1845 he was elected an 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 ...

. His most important work was on the

magnetism Magnetism is the class of physical attributes that are mediated by a magnetic field, which refers to the capacity to induce attractive and repulsive phenomena in other entities. Electric currents and the magnetic moments of elementary particles ...

of the Earth. He performed magnetic surveys in Bavaria and northern Germany, France, Spain, and Denmark. He discovered a magnetic decennial period (ten-year cycle) and the

electric current An electric current is a stream of charged particles, such as electrons or ions, moving through an electrical conductor or space. It is measured as the net rate of flow of electric charge through a surface or into a control volume. The moving pa ...

in the Earth closing the electric "circuit" creating the magnetic field in 1850. This roughly matched the eleven-year

sunspot Sunspots are phenomena on the Sun's photosphere that appear as temporary spots that are darker than the surrounding areas. They are regions of reduced surface temperature caused by concentrations of magnetic flux that inhibit convection. Sun ...

cycle discovered by

Heinrich Schwabe Samuel Heinrich Schwabe (25 October 1789 – 11 April 1875) a German astronomer remembered for his work on sunspots. Schwabe was born at Dessau. At first an apothecary, he turned his attention to astronomy, and in 1826 commenced his observations ...

. He calculated the

orbit In celestial mechanics, an orbit is the curved trajectory of an object such as the trajectory of a planet around a star, or of a natural satellite around a planet, or of an artificial satellite around an object or position in space such as a p ...

s of the moons of

Uranus Uranus is the seventh planet from the Sun. Its name is a reference to the Greek god of the sky, Uranus (mythology), Uranus (Caelus), who, according to Greek mythology, was the great-grandfather of Ares (Mars (mythology), Mars), grandfather ...

and

Saturn Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second-largest in the Solar System, after Jupiter. It is a gas giant with an average radius of about nine and a half times that of Earth. It has only one-eighth the average density of Earth; h ...

, obtaining the first value for Uranus' mass. By chance he observed

Neptune Neptune is the eighth planet from the Sun and the farthest known planet in the Solar System. It is the fourth-largest planet in the Solar System by diameter, the third-most-massive planet, and the densest giant planet. It is 17 times ...

in 1845 and twice in 1846, but did not recognize the object as being a new planet. He died, unmarried and without children, in

Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the States of Germany, German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the List of cities in Germany by popu ...

, Germany, on 6 August 1879. His considerable wealth was used to found scholarships in sciences. He is buried in

Churchyard on the edge of Munich.

Publications

Lamont is the author of ''Handbuch des Erdmagnetismus'' (1849).

Honours

His many honours include

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 ...

and

. In 1867 he was awarded the

Merit Order of the Bavarian Crown The Order of Merit of the Bavarian Crown (german: Verdienstorden der Bayerischen Krone) was an order of merit of the Kingdom of Bavaria established by King Maximilian Joseph I on 19 March 1808. The motto of the order is Virtus et Honos ('Courage ...

by the King of Bavaria, through which Lamont was ennobled and permitted to use the predicate "von". The statue on his tomb in Munich has him with an open hand, into which the locals put small coins. In 1934 the Deeside Field Club erected a granite memorial cairn in his memory at Inverey, Scotland. It was unveiled by

Sir James Jeans Sir James Hopwood Jeans (11 September 187716 September 1946) was an English physicist, astronomer and mathematician. Early life Born in Ormskirk, Lancashire, the son of William Tulloch Jeans, a parliamentary correspondent and author. Jeans was ...

. The following astronomical features were named in his honor: *

Lamont (Martian crater) Lamont is a crater in the Thaumasia quadrangle of Mars, located at 58.6°S latitude and 113.6°W longitude. It is 76.0 kilometers in diameter. It was named after German astronomer Johann von Lamont. See also * List of craters on Mars _ ...

. *

Lamont (lunar crater) Lamont is a system of low ridges in the surface of Mare Tranquillitatis that is most likely a submerged impact crater. It was named after Scottish-born German astronomer Johann von Lamont. It is located to the southeast of the crater Arago. Lamo ...

References

External links

Obituaries

MNRAS 40 (1880) 208

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lamont, Johann von 1805 births 1879 deaths 19th-century German physicists 19th-century Scottish scientists People from Marr Honorary Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh Academic staff of the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich Foreign Members of the Royal Society 19th-century German astronomers Magneticians Scottish Roman Catholics Scottish emigrants to Germany