Eckert

17.3N

58.3E

2

Wallace John ~ (1902-1971), American astronomer; a pioneer in the use of computers to tabulate astronomical data. Director of the U.S. Nautical Almanac Office during World War II. In this post he introduced machine methods to compute and print tables and began publication of the Air Almanac in 1940. Eckert directed the construction of a number of innovative computers for performing astronomical calculations, including the Selective Sequence Electronic Calculator (SSEC, 1949) and the Naval Ordnance Research Calculator (NORC, 1954), which for many years was the most powerful computer in the world. The accuracy of Eckert's calculations of the Moon's orbit was so good that in 1965 he was able to correctly show that there was a concentration of mass near the lunar surface. In 1967, he produced data which improved on Brown's theory of the Moon.

Eddington

21.3N

72.2W

118

Sir Arthur Stanley ~ (1882-1944), British astrophysicist and mathematician; succeeded George Darwin as Plumian Professor of Astronomy at Cambridge (1913), and became director of the Cambridge Observatory (1914). Discovered the mass-luminosity relationship for stars, calculated the abundance of hydrogen, and produced a theory to explain the pulsation of Cepheid variable stars.

Edison

25.0N

99.1E

62

Thomas Alva ~ (1847-1931), American inventor; patented 1,093 inventions, more than any other single person in U.S. history. Most famous for his development of the first electric light bulb, he also devised improvements to the telephone and contributed to the development of motion pictures and sound recordings. Of all his inventions, Edison was most proud of the phonograph.

Edith

25.8S

102.3E

8

English female name.

Egede

48.7N

10.6E

37

Hans ~ (1686-1758), Danish missionary and natural historian, born in Norway; known as "The Apostle of Greenland" because of his Christian missionary work there which began in 1721 and continued for fifteen years. His Det gamle Grønlands nye perlustration (1729) contained the first extensive description of Greenland's people, plant and animal life, language and culture.

Ehrlich

40.9N

172.4W

30

Paul ~ (1854-1915), German immunologist and physician; discovered the cure to syphilis and advanced the field of disease immunity. Awarded the 1908 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (along with I.I. Mechnikov) "in recognition of their work on immunity."

Eichstadt

22.6S

78.3W

49

Lorentz ~ (1596-1660), German mathematician and astronomer.

Eijkman

63.1S

143.0W

54

Christiaan H. ~ (1858-1930), Dutch physician and researcher; while investigating the disease beriberi in Java, his observations of dietary deficiency led to the discovery of vitamins. Awarded the 1929 Nobel Prize in Medicine "for his discovery of the antineuritic vitamin" (along with Sir Frederick Gowland Hopkins).

Eimmart

24.0N

64.8E

46

Georg Christoph ~ (1638-1705), German artist, cartographer and astronomer; created a lunar atlas, the Genuina Corporis Lunaris Facies, with many features misplaced, the outlines of most of the maria in error, and many prominent craters not appearing at all.

Einstein

16.3N

88.7W

198

Albert ~ (1879-1955), German-American physicist; published three papers in 1905, each of which had a profound effect on the development of physics. In one paper, he proposed the theory of special relativity, which provides a correct description for particles traveling at high speeds. Einstein also explained the photoelectric effect by hypothesizing that light consisted of particles (called photons ) with energy equal to E=hv. Einstein also provided an explanation of Brownian motion using kinetic theory, stating that it was caused by random collisions of molecules. He derived an equation stating that a suspension of small particles should arrange itself in an exponentially decreasing manner from bottom up. Einstein subsequently developed general relativity, which postulated that uniform acceleration and a gravitational field were equivalent, a statement known as the gravitational equivalence principle. It interpreted gravity as a warping of space-time. Awarded the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics "for his services to Theoretical Physics, and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect."

Einthoven

4.9S

109.6E

69

Willem ~ (1879-1955), Dutch physiologist, born in Java; awarded the 1924 Nobel Prize in Medicine "for his discovery of the mechanism of the electrocardiogram."

El Greco

14.0N

34.7E

6

Domenikos Theotokopoulos, or ~ (c. 1541-1614), Spanish artist, born in Crete; Mannerist painter, most famous for his epic religious paintings, including The Madonna and Child with St. Martina and St. Agnes.

Elger

35.3S

29.8W

21

Thomas Gwyn ~ (1838-1897), British astronomer; first director of the Lunar Section of the British Astronomical Association, which kept up interest in the Moon after the demise of the Selenographic Society. Using an 8.5" reflector, Elger made many drawings of the Moon between 1884 and 1896; his sketchbooks survive, and are now in the possession of the British Astronomical Association. His The Moon: A full Description and Map of its Principal Physical Features (1895) is considered one of the finest lunar atlases produced in its time.

Ellerman

25.3S

120.1W

47

Ferdinand ~ (1869-1940), American astronomer, educator and photographer; Hale's first assistant at Mount Wilson Observatory, Ellerman conducted a one-man expedition to Hawaii to observe and measure Halley's Comet (1910).

Ellison

55.1N

107.5W

36

Mervyn A. ~ (1909-1963), Irish astronomer; director of Dunsink Observatory (1957-1963), which amassed a data bank of almost 700,000 solar images, recorded in the Dunsink Observatory Publications. Through his involvement with the International Geophysical Year (IGY), an international co-operative scientific project, Dunsink became a world data center for solar research.

Elmer

10.1S

84.1E

16

Charles W. ~ (1872-1954), American optical engineer; with Richard S. Perkin (q.v.), he founded the noted American precision optics firm, Perkin-Elmer.

Elvey

8.8N

100.5W

74

Christian T. ~ (1899-1970), American geophysicist and astronomer; his studies of auroral phenomena brought international prominence to science in Alaska. Director of the Geophysical Institute at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks (1952-1963), vice president for research (1961-1963) and special assistant to the president (1963-1967).

Emden

63.3N

177.3W

111

J. Robert ~ (1862-1940), Swiss astrophysicist and meteorologist. developed a theory of expansion and compression of gas spheres and applied it to stellar structure.

Encke

4.6N

36.6W

28

Johann Franz ~ (1791-1865), German mathematician and astronomer; famous as the discoverer of short periodic comets. The first object of this family (2P/Encke) was named after him; it is one of the few comets not named after the discoverer, but after the one who calculated the orbit.

Endymion

53.9N

57.0E

123

Greek god; beloved of Selene (q.v.), Greek goddess of the Moon.

Engel'gardt

5.7N

159.0W

43

Vasilii Pavlovich ~ (1828-1915), Soviet physicist and astronomer.

Eötvös,
or Eotvos

35.5S

133.8E

99

Báró vásárosnaményi Eötvös Loránd , or Roland von ~ (1848-1919), Hungarian nobleman, philanthropist and physicist; founder of Eötvös Society (1891), president of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (1889-1905), rector of Budapest University (1891-1892), minister of education (1894). The Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest was named in his honor.

Epigenes

67.5N

4.6W

55

~ (?-c. 200 B.C.), Greek astronomer; developed early theories of comets.

Epimenides

40.9S

30.2W

27

~ the Cretan (?-fl. 596 B.C.), Greek philosopher, mathematician, poet and author; the Epimenides Paradox ("All Cretans are liars ... One of their own poets has said so"), attributed to him, is one of the earliest forms of mathematical logic.

Eppinger

9.4S

25.7W

6

Hans ~, Jnr. (1879-1946), Czechoslovakian doctor; served as Josef Stalin's personal physician. Employed by the Nazis at the Dachau concentration camp, he conducted experiments upon Jewish and Gypsy prisoners who were given unaltered sea water and sea water whose taste was camouflaged as their sole source of fluid, causing severe physical disturbance or death within six to twelve days. Eppinger killed himself exactly one month before he was scheduled to testify in the Nuremberg war crimes trial. (Designation of crater removed by the International Astronomical Union in October 2002.)

Eratosthenes

14.5N

11.3W

58

~ of Cyrene (c. 275-195 B.C.), Greek scholar, astronomer and geographer; first to accurately estimate the diameter of Earth. For several decades, he served as the director of the famous library in Alexandria. Also conceived the "Sieve of Eratosthenes," a method of identifying prime numbers.

Erro

5.7N

98.5E

61

Luis Enrique ~ (1897-1955), Mexican astronomer, mathematician, author, journalist and government official; the discoverer of 20 variable stars, he helped to found and served as first director of the National Observatory at Tonantzintla, Mexico. The planetarium at the Instituto Politécnico Nacional in Mexico City was named in his honor.

Esclangon

21.5N

42.1E

15

Ernest Benjamin ~ (1876-1954), French astronomer and mathematician; director of the observatory at Strasbourg (1918), and professor of astronomy (1919) prior to becoming director of the Observatory at Paris (1929-1944), where he also served as professor of astronomy (1930-1946). In 1933, using an astronomical calculation of time, he started the "talking clock" telephone service in Paris, carried out in his role as Director of the Bureau International de l'Heure (1929-1944).

Esnault-Pelterie

47.7N

141.4W

790

Robert A. C. ~ (1881-1957), French-Swiss sculptor, pilot, aviation engineer and inventor; the fourth licensed pilot in France, he made his first flight in the spring of 1907 at his own Aerodrome Toussus-le-Noble. His epic work, Astronautics (1930), constituted a landmark review of the problems and prospects of space travel. A subsequent edition in 1934 gave considerable attention to interplanetary travel, including the applications of nuclear power.

Espin

28.1N

109.1E

75

Rev. Thomas H. E. C. ~ (1858-1934), British astronomer; author of The Elementary Star Atlas and Catalogue of Red Stars and a founder of the Liverpool Astronomical Society.

Euclides

7.4S

29.5W

11

Euclid (?-c. 300 B.C.), Greek mathematician; famous for his Elements, a presentation in thirteen books of the geometry and other mathematics known in his day. The first six books cover elementary plane geometry and have served since as the basis for most beginning courses on this subject. The other books of the Elements treat the theory of numbers and certain problems in arithmetic (on a geometric basis) and solid geometry, including the five regular polyhedra, or Platonic solids. The great contribution of Euclid was his use of a deductive system for the presentation of mathematics.

Euctemon

76.4N

31.3E

62

~ (fl-fl. 432 B.C.) Greek astronomer; devised a seasonal calendar consisting of a 19-year cycle with the help of another astronomer, Meton of Athens (q.v.). Together they made a series of measurements of the length of the shadow cast by a gnomon, measuring vernal equinox to vernal equinox, in order to calculate the length of the tropical year, settling on a 19-year cycle (the Metonic cycle). Euctemon and Meton also devised another important astronomical invention, the parapegma, a stone tablet with inscriptions above pegs to indicate the correspondence between the risings of stars with certain dates.

Eudoxus

44.3N

16.3E

67

~ of Cnidus (ca. 400-ca. 347 B.C.) Greek philosopher, astronomer and mathematician; the first Greek to make a map of the stars, he accepted Plato's notion of the rotation of the planets around the Earth on crystalline spheres, but noticed discrepancies with observations. However, his postulation was equally flawed and failed to give a proper mechanical explanation. As a mathematician, his work on ratios formed the basis for Book V of Euclid's Elements, and anticipated in a number of ways the notion of algebra, which is otherwise absent from ancient Greek mathematics.

Euler

23.3N

29.2W

27

Leonhard ~ (1707-1783), Swiss mathematician; arguably the greatest mathematician of the 18th century, and one of the most prolific of all time. His publication list extends to 886 papers and books, and his complete works fill about 90 volumes. Euler's important contributions were so numerous that terms like "Euler's formula" or "Euler's theorem" can mean many different things depending on context. In mechanics, there are Euler angles (to specify the orientation of a rigid body); Euler's theorem (that every rotation has an axis); Euler's equations for motion of fluids; and the Euler-Lagrange equation (that comes from calculus of variations). The "Euler's formula" with which most calculus students are familiar defines the exponentials of imaginary numbers in terms of trigonometric functions; however, there is another "Euler's formula" that gives the values of the Riemann zeta function at positive even integers in terms of Bernoulli numbers.

Evans

9.5S

133.5W

67

Sir Arthur John ~ (1851-1941), British archaeologist; became curator of the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford in 1884. Largely responsible for the excavations of the Cretan city of Knossos, capital of the Minoan civilization, which uncovered the site that is open to visitors today. Not only did Evans discover these remains, but he substantially restored and reconstructed them.

Evdokimov

34.8N

153.0W

50

Nikolaj N. ~ (1868-1940), Soviet astronomer.

Evershed

35.7N

159.5W

66

John ~ (1864-1956), British astronomer; discovered the horizontal motion of gases outward from the centers of sunspots, a phenomenon called the Evershed effect (1909). Appointed assistant director of the Kodaikanal and Madras observatories India in 1906, later becoming director. On an expedition to Kashmir in 1915, he made the first measurements supporting Einstein's prediction that the wavelength of light emitted by a massive body — in this case, the Sun — should be increased by an amount proportional to the intensity of the local gravitational field. Returning to England in 1925, he built his own solar observatory at Ewhurst.

Ewen

7.7N

121.4E

3

Gaelic male name.