Raymond Arthur Lyttleton FRS (7 May 1911 – 16 May 1995) was a

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

mathematician and theoretical

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, moons, comets and galaxies – in either ...

. He was born in

Warley Woods Warley Woods (sometimes known as Warley Park, or Warley Woods Park) is a public park in the Warley, West Midlands, Warley district of Smethwick, in Sandwell, in the West Midlands (county), West Midlands of England, originally laid out by Humphr ...

near

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the We ...

and educated at

King Edward VI Five Ways King Edward VI Five Ways (KEFW) is a highly selective co-educational state grammar school for ages 11–18 in Bartley Green, Birmingham, England. One of the seven establishments of the Foundation of the Schools of King Edward VI, it is a volu ...

school in Birmingham, going from there to

Clare College, Cambridge Clare College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, England. The college was founded in 1326 as University Hall, making it the second-oldest surviving college of the University after Peterhouse. It was refound ...

to read mathematics, graduating in 1933. He was elected a Fellow of St John's College in 1937 and appointed a lecturer in mathematics in the same year (until 1959). A keen amateur cricketer, he played

minor counties cricket The National Counties, known as the Minor Counties before 2020, are the cricketing counties of England and Wales that do not have first-class status. The game is administered by the National Counties Cricket Association (NCCA), which comes und ...

for

Cambridgeshire Cambridgeshire (abbreviated Cambs.) is a county in the East of England, bordering Lincolnshire to the north, Norfolk to the north-east, Suffolk to the east, Essex and Hertfordshire to the south, and Bedfordshire and Northamptonshire to t ...

from 1946–1949, making fifteen appearances. He was Reader in Theoretical Astronomy from 1959 to 1969, after which he was appointed to a specially created professorship in the subject. He was elected a

Fellow of the Royal Society 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 mathemati ...

in 1955. His application citation read: "''Distinguished for his work in astronomy. Author of numerous papers on the origin and early history of the Solar System, notably his modifications of the collision theory. Showed from work of Cartan that fission of a planet by rotation would give two independent bodies, and consequently that the fission theory of binary stars is untenable (The Stability of Rotating Liquid Masses, 1953). Author (with F. Hoyle) of numerous papers on the astronomical effects of accretion, and (with H. Bondi) of two on the transmission of the tidal friction couple to the Earth's core and on the behaviour of the core during precessions. Author of a striking new theory of comets. (The Comets and their Origin, 1953)'' He won the Royal Society

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 1965 "''In recognition of his distinguished contributions to astronomy, particularly for his work on the dynamical stability of galaxies''." He wrote a number of books:'' The Comets and Their Origin'' (1953), ''The Stability of Rotating Liquid Masses'' (1953), ''The Modern Universe'' , '' Rival Theories of Cosmology'' , '' Man's View of the Universe'' (1961), ''Mysteries of the Solar System'' (1968), '' The Earth and its Mountains'' (1982), ''The Gold Effect'' (1990). In 1956, he presented a 5-part television series on the B.B.C. entitled "The Modern Universe" He had married Meave Hobden in Poole in 1939.

References

External links

''Professor Raymond A. Lyttleton, F.R.S.'' a tribute by Sharan Majumdar
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lyttleton, Raymond 1911 births 1995 deaths Royal Medal winners Recipients of the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society Fellows of the Royal Society People educated at King Edward VI Five Ways English cricketers Cambridgeshire cricketers