Scott Duncan Tremaine (born 1950) is a Canadian-born astrophysicist. He is a fellow of the

Royal Society of London 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 ...

, the Royal Society of Canada and the National Academy of Sciences. Tremaine is widely regarded as one of the world's leading astrophysicists for his contributions to the theory of

Solar System The Solar System Capitalization of the name varies. The International Astronomical Union, the authoritative body regarding astronomical nomenclature, specifies capitalizing the names of all individual astronomical objects but uses mixed "Solar ...

and

galactic Galactic is an American jam band from New Orleans, Louisiana. Origins and background Formed in 1994 as an octet (under the name Galactic Prophylactic) and including singer Chris Lane and guitarist Rob Gowen, the group was soon pared down to a ...

dynamics. Tremaine is the

namesake A namesake is a person, geographic location, or other entity bearing the name of another. History The word is first attested around 1635, and probably comes from the phrase "for one's name's sake", which originates in English Bible translations ...

of asteroid

3806 Tremaine 38 may refer to: *38 (number), the natural number following 37 and preceding 39 *one of the years 38 BC, AD 38, 1938, 2038 *.38, a caliber of firearms and cartridges **.38 Special, a revolver cartridge *'' Thirty-Eight: The Hurricane That Transfor ...

. He is credited with coining the name " Kuiper belt".

Career

He obtained a bachelor's degree at

McMaster University McMaster University (McMaster or Mac) is a public research university in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. The main McMaster campus is on of land near the residential neighbourhoods of Ainslie Wood and Westdale, adjacent to the Royal Botanical Ga ...

in 1971, and a PhD from

Princeton University Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ...

in 1975. He further received an honorary PhD from McMaster University in 1996. He was an associate professor at the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...

from 1981 to 1985. He became the first director of the Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics at the

University of Toronto The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public university, public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park (Toronto), Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 ...

in 1986, a position he held until 1996. He gained the rare distinction of "University Professor" at the University of Toronto in 1995. In 1997, he left CITA and took up a position as a professor at Princeton University, becoming chair of the Astrophysical Sciences department from 1998 to 2006. Scott Tremaine is currently a professor at the

Institute for Advanced Study The Institute for Advanced Study (IAS), located in Princeton, New Jersey, in the United States, is an independent center for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry. It has served as the academic home of internationally preeminent schola ...

, for which he left Princeton University in 2007, being replaced as department chair by

David Spergel David Nathaniel Spergel is an American theoretical astrophysicist and the Emeritus Charles A. Young Professor of Astronomy on the Class of 1897 Foundation at Princeton University. Since 2021, he has been the President of the Simons Foundation ...

. He has been married to Prof. Marilyn Mantei Tremaine for more than two decades, an expert in human-computer interaction who is the past chair of the

SIGCHI The Special Interest Group on Computer–Human Interaction (SIGCHI) is one of the Association for Computing Machinery's special interest groups which is focused on human–computer interactions (HCI). It hosts the flagship annual international HC ...

section of the Association for Computing Machinery.

Scientific accomplishments

Tremaine, along with Peter Goldreich, correctly predicted that

shepherd moon A shepherd moon (also herder moon or watcher moon) is a small natural satellite that clears a gap in planetary-ring material or keeps particles within a ring contained. The name is a result of the fact they limit the "herd" of the ring particle ...

s created Saturn's thin

F ring The rings of Saturn are the most extensive ring system of any planet in the Solar System. They consist of countless small particles, ranging in size from micrometers to meters, that orbit around Saturn. The ring particles are made almost entir ...

, as well as the thin rings of

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

in 1979. The Saturnian moons

Prometheus In Greek mythology, Prometheus (; , , possibly meaning " forethought")Smith"Prometheus". is a Titan god of fire. Prometheus is best known for defying the gods by stealing fire from them and giving it to humanity in the form of technology, kn ...

and Pandora were first observed in 1981 and shepherding moons were found around Uranus' rings in 1986. Tremaine cowrote the book ''Galactic Dynamics'' with James Binney, which is often regarded as the standard reference in the field and has been

cited A citation is a reference to a source. More precisely, a citation is an abbreviated alphanumeric expression embedded in the body of an intellectual work that denotes an entry in the bibliographic references section of the work for the purpose of ...

more than three thousand times in scholarly publications. Tremaine, along with collaborators at the University of Toronto, showed that short period

comet A comet is an icy, small Solar System body that, when passing close to the Sun, warms and begins to release gases, a process that is called outgassing. This produces a visible atmosphere or coma, and sometimes also a tail. These phenomena ...

s originate in the Kuiper belt. Tremaine is credited with suggesting that the apparent "double nucleus" of the

Andromeda Galaxy The Andromeda Galaxy (IPA: ), also known as Messier 31, M31, or NGC 224 and originally the Andromeda Nebula, is a barred spiral galaxy with the diameter of about approximately from Earth and the nearest large galaxy to the Milky Way. The gal ...

was in fact a single ring of old red stars.

Awards and honours

In 2020, he was elected a Legacy Fellow of the American Astronomical Society in 2020. In 2013, he won the Tomalla Foundation Prize for his work on gravitational dynamics. In 2010, he received an honorary doctorate from the University of Toronto "in recognition of his scholarly contributions to the field of astrophysics, and his administrative leadership in support of Canadian and international science". In 2005, he won the Research Award from the

Alexander von Humboldt Foundation The Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (german: Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung) is a foundation established by the government of the Federal Republic of Germany and funded by the Federal Foreign Office, the Federal Ministry of Education and Rese ...

. In 2002, he was elected to membership in the National Academy of Sciences. In 1999, Tremaine also received an honorary Doctor of Science degree from St. Mary's University. In 1998, he won the Dirk Brouwer Award which is awarded by the Division of Dynamical Astronomy of the American Astronomical Society "in recognition of his many outstanding contributions to a wide range of dynamical problems in both solar-system and galactic dynamics." In 1997, he was awarded the

Dannie Heineman Prize for Astrophysics The Dannie Heineman Prize for Astrophysics is jointly awarded each year by the American Astronomical Society and American Institute of Physics for outstanding work in astrophysics. It is funded by the Heineman Foundation in honour of Dannie Heine ...

for "diverse and insightful applications of dynamics to planets, rings, comets, galaxies and the universe." In 1996, he was awarded an honorary Doctor of Science award by McMaster University. In 1994, Tremaine became a Fellow 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 ...

of London and also of the Royal Society of Canada. In 1990, he was awarded the Rutherford Memorial Medal in Physics by the Academies of Arts, Humanities and Sciences of Canada for "his outstanding contributions to the field to astrophysics, particularly his spectacular success in predicting the properties of planetary ring dynamics and the extraplanetary objects that control them". In 1990, he won the C.S. Beals Award from the Canadian Astronomical Society which is awarded for outstanding research to a Canadian astronomer or an astronomer working in Canada. In 1983, he won the

Helen B. Warner Prize for Astronomy The Helen B. Warner Prize for Astronomy is awarded annually by the American Astronomical Society to a young astronomer (aged less than 36, or within 8 years of the award of their PhD) for a significant contribution to observational or theoretical ...

given by the American Astronomical Society in recognition of "his many outstanding contributions to a wide range of dynamical problems in both solar-system and galactic dynamics".

External links

Scholarly Works by Scott Tremaine from the Astrophysical Data System

Scott Tremaine's Homepage at the Institute for Advanced Study

"Astrophysical Wonders, Part I – Solar System Astronomy – A Conversation with Scott Tremaine"
''Ideas Roadshow'', 2015
"Astrophysical Wonders, Part II – Galactic Astronomy – A Conversation with Scott Tremaine"
''Ideas Roadshow'', 2015

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Tremaine, Scott 1950 births Living people Canadian astrophysicists 20th-century Canadian astronomers Fellows of the Royal Society of Canada Fellows of the Royal Society Institute for Advanced Study faculty Massachusetts Institute of Technology faculty McMaster University alumni Scientists from Toronto Princeton University alumni Princeton University faculty University of Toronto faculty Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences Winners of the Dannie Heineman Prize for Astrophysics Fellows of the American Astronomical Society 21st-century Canadian astronomers