Forest Ray Moulton

Template:Short description Template:Infobox scientist Forest Ray Moulton (April 29, 1872 – December 7, 1952) was an American astronomer.<ref>Template:Citation</ref> He was the brother of Harold G. Moulton, a noted economist.

Biography

He was born in Le Roy, Michigan, and was educated at Albion College. After graduating in 1894 (A.B.), he pursued graduate studies at the University of Chicago and gained a Ph.D. in 1899. At the University of Chicago he was associate in astronomy (1898–1900), instructor (1900–03), assistant professor (1903–08), associate professor (1908–12), and professor after 1912.<ref>New International Encyclopedia</ref>

He is noted for being a proponent, along with Thomas Chamberlin, of the Chamberlin–Moulton planetesimal hypothesis that the planets coalesced from smaller bodies they termed planetesimals. Their hypothesis called for the close passage of another star to trigger this condensation, a concept that has since fallen out of favor.

In the first decades of the twentieth century, some additional small satellites were discovered to be in orbit around Jupiter. Dr. Moulton proposed that these were actually gravitationally-captured planetesimals. This theory has become well-accepted among astronomers.

Moulton was elected to the United States National Academy of Sciences in 1910,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> the American Philosophical Society in 1916,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1919.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

The crater Moulton on the Moon, the Adams–Moulton methods for solving differential equations and the Moulton plane in geometry are named after him.

Moulton was a critic of Albert Einstein's theory of relativity.<ref>Crelinsten, Jeffrey. (2016). Einstein's Jury: The Race to Test Relativity. Princeton University Press. p. 303. Template:ISBN</ref>

He was in charge of ballistics at Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland during World War I.

According to Craig A. Stephenson:<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Template:Blockquote

Connection to "Hidden Figures"

In September of 1960, Katherine Johnson used Moulton’s book, An Introduction to Celestial Mechanics, to assist her in calculating how John Glenn would return safely to Earth after his orbital flight.<ref>Template:Citation</ref> This was depicted in the 2016 movie, Hidden Figures.

Selected publications

He became an associate editor of the Transactions of the American Mathematical Society in 1907 and a research associate of the Carnegie Institution in 1908. He served for several terms as secretary of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), and edited more than twenty AAAS symposia.<ref>Template:Biographical Memoirs. Here: p.345–346 (= p.7–8 in the file)</ref> Besides various contributions to mathematical and astronomical journals he was the author of:

• An Introduction to Celestial Mechanics (1902;<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> second, revised edition, 1914)
• An Introduction to Astronomy (1906; 2nd, revised edition, 1916<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>)
• Descriptive Astronomy (1912)
• Periodic Orbits (1920)
• New Methods in Exterior Ballistics (1926)<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
• Differential Equations (1930)<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
• Astronomy (1931)<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
• Consider the Heavens (1935)<ref>"Book Review: Consider the Heavens, by Forest Ray Moulton". Popular Astronomy. Volume 44, 1936.</ref><ref>"Dr. Moulton Finds There Is Order in the Universe". The New York Times. Retrieved 2 February 2021.</ref>

External links

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• JRASC 47 (1954) 84 (obituary)
• PASP 65 (1954) 60 (obituary)
• Template:Cite web (slides from talk at SRE Inter-Departmental Science Workshop, Aranjuez, Spain)