Sir John Anthony Carroll (8 January 1899 – 2 May 1974) was a British

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 ...

. In the 1920s he worked at the Solar Physics Observatory,

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...

, UK with F.J.M. Stratton and

Richard van der Riet Woolley Sir Richard van der Riet Woolley Officer of the Order of the British Empire, OBE Fellow of the Royal Society, FRS (24 April 1906 – 24 December 1986) was an English astronomer who became the eleventh Astronomer Royal. His mother's maiden n ...

. He made major technological advances, inventing a high resolution spectrometer, and (with C G Fraser) a ''coronal camera''.

Life

He was born near

Manchester Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...

and educated at King's School in Chester, before winning a scholarship to

Cambridge University , mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts. Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge. , established = , other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...

in 1917. However, he decided to postpone Cambridge, and instead enlisted for service in the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, finding an interesting role in the

Royal Aircraft Establishment The Royal Aircraft Establishment (RAE) was a British research establishment, known by several different names during its history, that eventually came under the aegis of the Ministry of Defence (United Kingdom), UK Ministry of Defence (MoD), bef ...

in Farnborough, to serve doing applied aeronautical science alongside

George Paget Thomson Sir George Paget Thomson, FRS (; 3 May 189210 September 1975) was a British physicist and Nobel laureate in physics recognized for his discovery of the wave properties of the electron by electron diffraction. Education and early life Thomson ...

. Returning to Cambridge after the war he graduated MA and then continued as a postgraduate, receiving a PhD from Imperial College in 1924. He next travelled to

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

to work at the

Mount Wilson Observatory The Mount Wilson Observatory (MWO) is an astronomical observatory in Los Angeles County, California, United States. The MWO is located on Mount Wilson, a peak in the San Gabriel Mountains near Pasadena, northeast of Los Angeles. The observat ...

with

Robert Millikan Robert Andrews Millikan (March 22, 1868 – December 19, 1953) was an American experimental physicist honored with the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1923 for the measurement of the elementary electric charge and for his work on the photoelectric e ...

for two years. Aged only 30 he received the post of Professor of Natural Philosophy at

Aberdeen University , mottoeng = The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom , established = , type = Public research universityAncient university , endowment = £58.4 million (2021) , budget ...

. 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 ...

in 1931. His interest in solar eclipses and especially the sun's corona during an eclipse, led to several foreign expeditions for observation purposes: including

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and t ...

, Malaya,

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

and a politically complex trip to

Omsk Omsk (; rus, Омск, p=omsk) is the administrative center and largest city of Omsk Oblast, Russia. It is situated in southwestern Siberia, and has a population of over 1.1 million. Omsk is the third largest city in Siberia after Novosibirsk ...

Siberia Siberia ( ; rus, Сибирь, r=Sibir', p=sʲɪˈbʲirʲ, a=Ru-Сибирь.ogg) is an extensive geographical region, constituting all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has been a part of ...

in 1936. A 1947 eclipse expedition to

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

resulted in the loss of three staff due to a plane crash near

Dakar Dakar ( ; ; wo, Ndakaaru) (from daqaar ''tamarind''), is the capital and largest city of Senegal. The city of Dakar proper has a population of 1,030,594, whereas the population of the Dakar metropolitan area is estimated at 3.94 million in 2 ...

West Africa West Africa or Western Africa is the westernmost region of Africa. The United Nations defines Western Africa as the 16 countries of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Mali, Maurit ...

crash. He was knighted in 1953 thereafter being known as Sir John Carroll. From 1964 to 68 Carroll was Professor of Astronomy at

Gresham College Gresham College is an institution of higher learning located at Barnard's Inn Hall off Holborn in Central London, England. It does not enroll students or award degrees. It was founded in 1596 under the will of Sir Thomas Gresham, and hosts ove ...

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

. He suffered a heart attack in 1972 and spent the final two years of his life in ill health. He died on 2 May 1974.

Family

He married twice, firstly in 1930 and secondly in 1951, the latter being to Jean Leslie Pole. He had one child by his first wife and two by the second.

Contributions to the development of computing

Whilst Professor of Natural Philosophy at

Aberdeen University , mottoeng = The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom , established = , type = Public research universityAncient university , endowment = £58.4 million (2021) , budget ...

, Carroll had been interested in acquiring desk computing machines for his students. These greatly reduced the labour in producing the mathematical tables needed in astronomy and other fields, including gunnery. In 1942 he became assistant director of research at the Scientific Research and Experiment Department, an

Admiralty Admiralty most often refers to: *Admiralty, Hong Kong *Admiralty (United Kingdom), military department in command of the Royal Navy from 1707 to 1964 *The rank of admiral *Admiralty law Admiralty can also refer to: Buildings * Admiralty, Traf ...

body which coordinated naval research departments. With

Donald Sadler Donald Harry Sadler (1908–1987) was an English astronomer and mathematician who developed an international reputation for his work in preparing astronomical and navigational almanacs. He worked as the Superintendent of His Majesty's Nautical ...

and John Todd, he formed the Admiralty Computing Service in 1943, which itself formed the basis for the NPL Mathematics Division when the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

ended in 1945. The NPL Maths Division offered a practical computing service and was also a centre of research into electronic computing and numerical analysis.

References

External links

* Croarken, Mary.
"Computing in Britain During World War II"
IEE, 6 July 2002. Retrieved 26 April 2006.
Australian Academy of Science
Reference in article about Richard Woolley.
Caltech
Reference in article about John Todd. * D. H. Sadler and F. M. Sadler
Obituary
Quarterly Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society, 1975, volume 16, 100–103

Life

Family

Contributions to the development of computing

See also

References

External links

Further reading