John Aitken,
FRS,
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 ...
LLD (18 September 1839 – 14 November 1919) was a Scottish meteorologist, physicist and marine engineer. He was one of the founders of
cloud physics and
aerosol
An aerosol is a suspension (chemistry), suspension of fine solid particles or liquid Drop (liquid), droplets in air or another gas. Aerosols can be natural or Human impact on the environment, anthropogenic. Examples of natural aerosols are fog o ...
science, who built the first apparatus to measure the number of dust and fog particles in the
atmosphere
An atmosphere () is a layer of gas or layers of gases that envelop a planet, and is held in place by the gravity of the planetary body. A planet retains an atmosphere when the gravity is great and the temperature of the atmosphere is low. A s ...
, a
koniscope.
Life
Aitken was born at Darroch House in
Falkirk
Falkirk ( gd, An Eaglais Bhreac, sco, Fawkirk) is a large town in the Central Lowlands of Scotland, historically within the county of Stirlingshire. It lies in the Forth Valley, northwest of Edinburgh and northeast of Glasgow.
Falkirk had a ...
on 18 September 1839, one of eight children of Henry Aitken of Darroch, a Falkirk lawyer in the firm of Russell & Aitken.
John was educated at Falkirk Grammar School and studied
marine engineering at
Glasgow University, undertaking his engineer training with
Messrs Napier & Sons, the Glasgow shipbuilder.
He returned to his home town of Falkirk, where he carried out his various experiments. In 1875 he was elected a 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 proposers were
William Thomson, Lord Kelvin,
Edward Sang,
James Thomson Bottomley
James Thomson Bottomley (10 January 1845 – 18 May 1926) was an Irish-born British physicist.
He is noted for his work on thermal radiation and on his creation of 4-figure logarithm tables, used to convert long multiplication and division ca ...
and
Allen Thomson.
He was elected a
Fellow of the Royal Society of London in 1889 and was awarded the
Royal Medal
The Royal Medal, also known as The Queen's Medal and The King's Medal (depending on the gender of the monarch at the time of the award), is a silver-gilt medal, of which three are awarded each year by the Royal Society, two for "the most important ...
in 1917. He also received the
Keith Medal (1883-1885) and Gunning Victoria Jubilee Prize (1893-6) from 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 ...
.
In April 1902 he received an
honorary doctorate (
LL.D.) from the
University of Glasgow.
He died at "Ardenlea", his villa on Redding Road in Falkirk 13 November 1919.
Work
He carried out experiments on atmospheric dust in relation to the formation of clouds and mists (1882), on the formation of
dew
Dew is water in the form of droplets that appears on thin, exposed objects in the morning or evening due to condensation.
As the exposed surface cools by radiating its heat, atmospheric moisture condenses at a rate greater than that at whi ...
(1885) and on the laws of
cyclone
In meteorology, a cyclone () is a large air mass that rotates around a strong center of low atmospheric pressure, counterclockwise in the Northern Hemisphere and clockwise in the Southern Hemisphere as viewed from above (opposite to an anti ...
s (1891). His instrument for counting the dust particles in the air has been used in principle by many later workers. He also invented new forms of
thermometer screens which aided the development of meteorology.
[
One of his experiments conducted with a self-designed apparatus provided the first evidence of new particle formation in the atmosphere. This work was documented in an article titled "On some nuclei of cloudy condensation", in the 39th volume of the ''Transactions 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 ...
'' published in 1898.
John Aitken was the author of a number of important pioneering discoveries "On Dust, Fogs and Clouds" (the title of an 1880 article he penned). As early as 1874, Aitken had concluded that when water vapour in the atmosphere condenses, it must condense on some solid particle, and thus, without the presence of dust and other aerosol particles in the air, there would be no formation of fog, clouds, or rain. In 1884, he concluded that the brilliant colours often seen in the sunset are due to the refraction of light by dust particles in the upper atmosphere.
Today, his name is given by atmospheric scientists
Atmospheric science is the study of the Earth's atmosphere and its various inner-working physical processes. Meteorology includes atmospheric chemistry and atmospheric physics with a major focus on weather forecasting. Climatology is the study of ...
to the smallest atmospheric aerosol particles
Particulates – also known as atmospheric aerosol particles, atmospheric particulate matter, particulate matter (PM) or suspended particulate matter (SPM) – are microscopic particles of solid or liquid matter suspended in the air. The ter ...
(Aitken nuclei), those with a radius less than 0.1 micrometres. This size range include the newly nucleated particles whose existence Aitken demonstrated.
Cargill Gilston Knott assembled and edited Aitkens works for the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and contributed an introductory Memoir:C. G. Knott
Cargill Gilston Knott FRS, FRSE LLD (30 June 1856 – 26 October 1922) was a Scottish physicist and mathematician who was a pioneer in seismological research. He spent his early career in Japan. He later became a Fellow of the Royal Society, ...
(1923) Collected Scientific Papers of John Aitken, Cambridge University Press via HathiTrust
HathiTrust Digital Library is a large-scale collaborative repository of digital content from research libraries including content digitized via Google Books and the Internet Archive digitization initiatives, as well as content digitized locally ...
Bibliography of Aitken's Papers
# Aitken, J. 1872. Melting and regelation of ice. Nature 6:396.
# Aitken, J. 1873. Glacier motion. Nature 7(172):287–288.
# Aitken, J. 1875. On boiling, condensing, freezing, and melting. Transactions of the Royal Scottish Society of Arts (1874–1875) 9:240–287.
# Aitken, J. 1875. Experiments illustrating rigidity produced by centrifugal force. Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (1875–1876) 9(94):73–78.
# Aitken, J. 1876. Experiments illustrating rigidity produced by centrifugal force. Proceedings of the Royal Philosophical Society of Glasgow (1875–1876) 10(1):99–106.
# Aitken, J. 1878. Experiments illustrating rigidity produced by centrifugal force. The London, Edinburgh, and Dublin Philosophical Magazine and Journal of Science, Fifth series, 5(29):81–105.
# Aitken, J. 1876–77. On ocean circulation. Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (1876–1877) 9(98):394–400.
# Aitken, J. 1880. On a new variety of ocular spectrum. Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (1878–1879) 10(104):40–44.
# Aitken, J. 1880. On the distribution of temperature under the ice in frozen lakes. Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (1878–1879) 10(104):409–415.
# Aitken, J. 1880. On dust, fogs, and clouds. Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (1880–1881) 11(108):14–18; 122–126.
# Aitken, J. 1880. On dust, fogs, and clouds. Nature 23(583):195–197.
# Aitken, J. 1881. Dust and fogs. Nature 23(588):311–312.
# Aitken, J. 1881. Dust, fogs, and clouds. Nature 23(591):384–385.
# Aitken, J. 1881. On dust, fogs, and clouds. Van Nostrand's Engineering Magazine 24(148):308–310.
# Aitken, J. 1882. On the colour of the Mediterranean and other waters. Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (1881–1882) 11:472–483.
# Aitken, J. 1882–1883. On the effect of oil on a stormy sea. Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (1882–1883) 12:56–75.
# Aitken, J. 1883. On dust, fogs, and clouds. Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh 30(1):337–368.
# Aitken, J. 1883–84. The remarkable sunsets. Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh 12:448–450,647-660.
# Aitken, J. 1884. On the formation of small clear spaces in dusty air. Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (1883–1884) 32:239–272.
# Aitken, J. 1884. Second note on the remarkable sunsets. Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (1883–1884) 12:123–133.
# Aitken, J. 1885. Chromomictors. Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (1884–1885) 13:122–130.
# Aitken, J. 1885. On dew. Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (1885–1886) 13(121):446–450.
# Aitken, J. 1885. On thermometer screens. Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (1885–1886) 13:632–642.
# Aitken, J. 1886. On dew. The London, Edinburgh, and Dublin Philosophical Magazine and Journal of Science, Fifth Series, 22(135):206–212; (137):363–368.
# Aitken, J. 1887. Note on hoar-frost. Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh 14(2):121–125.
# Aitken, J. 1888. On the number of dust particles in the atmosphere. Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh 35(1):1–19.
# Aitken, J. 1889. Dust particles in the atmosphere at Ben Nevis Observatory. Nature 40:350–351.
# Aitken, J. 1889. On improvements in the apparatus for counting the dust particles in the atmosphere. Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh 16(129):134–172.
# Aitken, J. 1890. On the number of dust particles in the atmosphere of certain places in Great Britain and on the continent, with remarks on the relation between the amount of dust and meteorological phenomena. Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (1889–1890) 17(130):193–254.
# Aitken, J. 1890. On the number of dust particles in the atmosphere of certain places in Great Britain and on the continent, with remarks on the relation between the amount of dust and meteorological phenomena. Nature 41(1061):394–396.
# Aitken, J. 1891. On a simple pocket dust-counter. Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (1890–1891) 18(February):39–52.
# Aitken, J. 1891. On a method of observing and counting the number of water particles in a fog. Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (1890–1891) 18:259–262.
# Aitken, J. 1891. On the solid and liquid particles in clouds. Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh 36:313–319.
# Aitken, J. 1892. On the number of dust particles in the atmosphere of certain places in Great Britain and on the continent, with remarks on the relation between the amount of dust and meteorological phenomena. Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh 37(3):17–49; (28):621–693.
# Aitken, J. 1892. On some phenomena connected with cloudy condensation. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London 51(312):408–439.
# Aitken, J. 1892–95. On some observations made without a dust counter on the hazing effect of atmospheric dust. Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh 20:76–93.
# Aitken, J. 1893. Particles in fogs and clouds. Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh 37(20):413–425.
# Aitken, J. 1893. Breath figures. Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh 20:94–97.
# Aitken, J. 1894. Dust and meteorological phenomena. Nature 49(1275):544–546.
# Aitken, J. 1894. Phenomena connected with cloudy condensation. Annual Report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution, July 1893, pp. 201–230.
# Aitken, J. 1895. On the number of dust particles in the atmosphere of certain places in Great Britain and on the continent, with remarks on the relation between the amount of dust and meteorological phenomena. Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh 37(3):17–49; (28):621–693.
# Aitken, J. 1896. Observations of atmospheric dust. In: Fassig, O. (ed), United States Department of Agriculture, Weather Bureau Bulletin 11, Part III, pp. 734–754.
# Aitken, J. 1898. On some nuclei of cloudy condensation. Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh 39(3):15–25.
# Aitken, J. 1902. Report on atmospheric dust. Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh 42(2):479–489.
# Aitken, J. 1903. On the formation of definitive figures by the deposition of dust. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London A 201:551–558.
# Aitken, J. 1905. Evaporation of musk and other odorous substances. Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh 25(10):894–902.
# Aitken, J. 1912. The sun as a fog producer. Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (1911–1912) 32:183–215.
See also
*Breath-figure self-assembly ]
Breath-figure self-assembly is the self-assembly process of formation of honeycomb micro-scaled polymer patterns by the condensation of water droplets. "Breath-figure" refers to the fog that forms when water vapor contacts a cold surface. In the ...
References
External links
Collected Scientific papers of John Aitken
{{DEFAULTSORT:Aitken, John
Scottish meteorologists
Scottish physicists
Scottish inventors
1839 births
1919 deaths
Royal Medal winners
Fellows of the Royal Society
People from Falkirk
Alumni of the University of Glasgow
Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh
Aerosol scientists
Scottish engineers
British marine engineers