Edward Walter Maunder

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Edward Walter Maunder
Edward Walter Maunder

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.

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[edit] Early and personal life

Edward Maunder was born in 1851, in London, the youngest child of a minister of the Wesleyan Society. He attended King's College London but never graduated. He took a job in a London bank to finance his studies.

Edward Maunder married twice. In 1873 Edward Maunder returned to the Royal Observatory, taking a position as a spectroscopic assistant. Shortly after, in 1875, he married Edith Hannah Bustin, who gave birth to six children. Fifteen years later, in 1890, he met Annie Scott Dill Russell (1868–1947), a mathematician with whom he collaborated for the remainder of his life. In 1895 Maunder and Russell married; they had no children. In 1916 Annie Maunder became one of the first women accepted by the Royal Astronomical Society.

Maunder was also an esteemed biblical scholar.

[edit] Solar observations

Figure 2: A modern version of the Mauders' sunspot "butterfly diagram". (This version from the solar group at NASA Marshall Space Flight Center.)
Figure 2: A modern version of the Mauders' sunspot "butterfly diagram". (This version from the solar group at NASA Marshall Space Flight Center.)

Part of Maunder's job at the Observatory 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. 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 worked as a "lady computer" who at the Observatory from 1890 to 1895. In 1904, he published their results in the form of the "butterfly" diagram.

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.

[edit] Other astronomical observations

Strange phenomenon on November 17, 1882, observed and described by Maunder in The Observatory, June 1883 (pp. 192-193) and April 1916 (pp. 213-215), which he termed an "auroral beam" and "a strange celestial visitor." Drawing by astronomer and aurora expert Rand Capron, Guildown Observatory, Surrey, UK, who also observed it. From Philosophical Magazine, May 1883.
Strange phenomenon on November 17, 1882, observed and described by Maunder in The Observatory, June 1883 (pp. 192-193) and April 1916 (pp. 213-215), which he termed an "auroral beam" and "a strange celestial visitor." Drawing by astronomer and aurora expert Rand Capron, Guildown Observatory, Surrey, UK, who also observed it. From Philosophical Magazine, May 1883.

In 1882 Mauder observed what he called an "auroral beam"; as yet unexplained, it was perhaps an early recorded observation of a noctilucent cloud.

He observed Mars and was a sceptic 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 and his wife Annie's honours.

[edit] Establishment of the British Astronomical Association

In 1890, Maunder was a driving force in the foundation of the British Astronomical Association. Although he had been fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society since 1875, Maunder wanted an association of astronomers open to every person interested in astronomy, from every class of society, and especially open for women.

Edward Maunder was the first editor of the Journal of the BAA, an office later taken by his wife Annie Maunder. His older brother, Thomas Frid Maunder (1841–1935), was a co-founder, and secretary of the the Association for 38 years.

[edit] Publications

  • Maunder, E. W. (1904). "Note on the Distribution of Sun-Spots in Heliographic Latitude, 1874-1902". Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 64: 747 – 761. 
  • Maunder, E. (1908). Astronomy of the Bible: An Elementary Commentary on the Astronomical References in the Holy Scripture. New York: Mitchell Kennerley. 
  • Maunder, A. and E. (1910). The Heavens and their Story. London: Charles H. Kelly. 
  • Maunder, E. Walter (1912). The Science of the Stars. London: T.C. and E.C. Jack. 

[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