Edward Walter Maunder

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Edward Walter Maunder (April 12, 1851 – March 21, 1928) was an English astronomer best remembered for his study of sunspots and the solar magnetic cycle that led to his identification of the period from 1645 to 1715 that is now known as the Maunder Minimum. He was also an esteemed biblical scholar.

He was born in London as the youngest child of a minister of the Wesleyan Society. He went to King's College London without ever graduating. He took a job in a London bank to finance his studies. In 1873 he returned to the Royal Observatory, taking a position as a spectroscopic assistant. Part of his job involved photographing and measuring sunspots, and in doing so he observed that the solar latitudes at which sunspots occur varies in a regular way over the course of the 11 year cycle. In 1904, he published his results in the form of the "butterfly" diagram. After 1891, he was assisted in his work by his second wife, Annie Scott Dill Maunder (née Russell), a mathematician educated at Girton College in Cambridge. She was one of the "lady computers" who were working at the Observatory from 1890 to 1895.

After studying the work of Gustav Spoerer, who had identified a period from 1400 to 1510 when sunspots had been rare ("the Spoerer Minimum"), he examined old records from the observatory's archives to determine whether there were other such periods. These studies led him in 1893 to announce the period that now bears his name.

He observed Mars and was a skeptic of the notion of Martian canals. He conducted visual experiments using marked circular disks which led him to conclude, correctly, that the viewing of canals arose as an optical illusion. Also he was convinced that there cannot be life "as in our world" on Mars, as there are no temperature-equating winds and too low mean temperatures. Craters on Mars and Moon were named in his honor.

In 1890, Maunder was a driving force in the foundation of the British Astronomical Association. Although himself fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society since 1875, he wanted an association of astronomers open to every person interested in astronomy from every class of society and especially open for women. Later on, his wife Annie was one of the first women accepted by the Royal Astronomical Society in 1916. Edward Maunder was the first editor of the Journal of the BAA, an office later taken by his wife. His older brother Thomas Frid Maunder (1841-1935) was cofounder and for 38 years secretary of the Association.

Edward Maunder married twice. In 1875, he married Edith Hannah Bustin, who gave birth to five children. In the marriage with Annie Scott Dill Russell (1868-1947) since 1895 no children were born.

[edit] Publications

  • E. Walter Maunder FRAS: The Royal Observatory, Greenwich: A Glance at its History and Work, (1900)
  • E. Maunder: Astronomy without a Telescope, (1902)
  • E.W. Maunder: Note on the distribution of sun-spots in heliographic latitude, 1874-1902, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 64, (1904) p.747-761
  • E. Maunder: Astronomy of the Bible: An Elementary Commentary on the Astronomical References in the Holy Scripture, (1908)
  • A. and E. Maunder: The Heavens and their Story, (1909)
  • E. Maunder: Are the Planets Inhabited?, (1913)

[edit] References

  • Willie Wei-Hock Soon and Steven H. Yaskell: The Maunder Minimum and the Variable Sun-Earth Connection, World Scientific, 2003, ISBN 981-238-274-7

An article on the life and work of Edward Walter Maunder is in the process of being prepared for publication, the first part, on his life and times, has been accepted for publication in the Journal of the British Astronomical Association, written by Anthony Kinder.

[edit] External links

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