Frank Watson Dyson

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Sir Frank Watson Dyson, FRS

Born	January 8, 1868(1868-01-08) Measham, nr Ashby-de-la-Zouch, Leicestershire, England
Died	May 25, 1939 (aged 71) At sea
Known for	Astronomer Royal

Sir Frank Watson Dyson FRS (January 8, 1868 – May 25, 1939) was an English astronomer who is remembered today largely for introducing time signals ("pips") from Greenwich, England, and for the role he played in testing Einstein's theory of general relativity.

1 Biography
2 Honors and memorials
3 Selected writings
4 References
5 External links

[edit] Biography

Dyson was born in Measham, near Ashby-de-la-Zouch, England. He won scholarships to Heath Grammar School, Halifax, and Cambridge University, where he studied mathematics and astronomy. He was Astronomer Royal for Scotland from 1905 to 1910, and Astronomer Royal (and director of the Royal Greenwich Observatory) from 1910 to 1933. In 1928, he introduced a new free-pendulum clock in the Observatory. This wireless transmission meant that Greenwich Mean Time was more accurate. He also invented the "six pips", in 1924.

Dyson was noted for his study of solar eclipses and was an authority on the spectrum of the corona and on the chromosphere. He is credited with organizing expeditions to observe the 1919 solar eclipse at Brazil and Principe, observations from which confirmed Einstein's theory of the effect of gravity on light.

Dyson died while traveling from Australia to England in 1939, and was buried at sea

[edit] Honors and memorials

Eclipse photograph from 1919 expedition^[1]

Fellow of the Royal Society - 1901
President, Royal Astronomical Society - 1911–1913
Knighted - 1915
President, British Astronomical Association, 1916–1918
Royal Medal of the Royal Society - 1921
Bruce Medal - 1922
Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society - 1925
KBE - 1926
Between 1894–1906, Dyson lived at 6 Vanbrugh Hill, Blackheath, London SE3, in a house now marked by a blue plaque.
Dyson crater on the Moon is named after him, as is the asteroid 1241 Dysona.

Frank Dyson and Freeman Dyson are not related. However, the latter does credit Sir Frank with sparking his interest in astronomy; because they shared the same last name, Sir Frank's achievements were discussed by Freeman Dyson's family when he was a young boy. Inspired, Dyson's first attempt at writing was a 1931 piece of juvenilia entitled "Sir Phillip Robert's Erolunar Collision" — Sir Philip being a thinly disguised version of Sir Frank.

[edit] Selected writings

Signature of Frank Dyson

A Determination of the Deflection of Light by the Sun's Gravitational Field, from Observations Made at the Total Eclipse of May 29, 1919 by F. W. Dyson, A. S. Eddington, and C. Davidson, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series A, Containing Papers of a Math. or Phys. Character, vol. 220, pp. 291 - 333, 1920
Astronomy, Frank Dyson, London, Dent, 1910