Denison Olmsted
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Denison Olmsted (June 18, 1791 - May 13, 1859), U.S. physicist and astronomer, was born at East Hartford, Connecticut.
Professor Olmsted is credited with giving birth to meteor science after the 1833 Leonid meteor shower over North America spurred him to study this phenomenon. He subsequently demonstrated that meteors are not an atmospheric phenomenon, but are cosmic in origin.
In 1813, he graduated from Yale University, where he acted as college tutor from 1815 to 1817. In the latter year he was appointed to the chair of chemistry, mineralogy and geology in the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. This chair he exchanged for that of mathematics and physics at Yale in 1825; in 1836, when this professorship was divided, he retained that of astronomy and natural philosophy.
He died at New Haven, Connecticut, on the 13 May 1859.
His first publication (1824-1825) was the Report of his geological survey of the state of North Carolina. It was followed by various text-books on natural philosophy and astronomy, but he is chiefly known to the scientific world for his observations on hail (1830), on meteors and on the aurora borealis (see Smithsonian Contributions, vol. viii). Others:
- Student's Commonplace Books (1828)
- Introduction to Natural Philosophy (1832)
- Introduction to Astronomy (1839)
- Letters on Astronomy, Addressed to a Lady (1841)
- Life and Writings of Ebenezer Porter Mason (1842)
[edit] References
- This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
- This article incorporates text from an edition of the New International Encyclopedia that is in the public domain.
