C.H.D. Buys Ballot

Christophorus Henricus Diedericus Buys Ballot (also Christoph Heinrich Diedrich Buys Ballot) (October 10, 1817-February 3, 1890) Dutch chemist and meteorologist after whom Buys-Ballot's law and the Buys Ballot table are called. Download high resolution version (1024x1342, 148 KB)C.H.D. Buys Ballot (1817-1890). ... Download high resolution version (1024x1342, 148 KB)C.H.D. Buys Ballot (1817-1890). ... October 10 is the 283rd day of the year (284th in Leap years). ... 1817 was a common year starting on Wednesday (see link for calendar). ... February 3 is the 34th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 1890 was a common year starting on Wednesday (see link for calendar). ... C.H.D. Buys Ballot Buys-Ballots law, in meteorology, is the name given to a law which may be expressed as follows: In the Northern Hemisphere, stand with your back to the wind; the low pressure area will be on your left. ...

The son of a Dutch Reformed minister, Buy Ballot attended the Gymnasium at Zaltbommel and the Hogenshool (now University)) of Utrecht. After receiving his doctorate in 1844, he became lecturer in mineralogy and geology at Utrecht; he added theoretical chemistry in 1846. In 1847 he was appointed professor of mathematics and from 1867 until his retirement he was professor of physics. Utrecht University (Universiteit Utrecht in Dutch) is a university in Utrecht, The Netherlands. ...

Buys Ballot is best known for his accomplishments in the field of meteorology, specifically the explanation of the direction of air flow in large weather systems. Furthermore, he founded the Royal Dutch Meteorological Institute (KNMI) in 1854 and he remained its chief director until his death. He was one of the first to see the need for international cooperation, and in 1873 became the first chairman of the International Meteorological Committee, a precursor of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). Satellite image of Hurricane Hugo Meteorology is the scientific study of the atmosphere that focuses on weather processes and forecasting. ... The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) is an intergovernmental organization with a membership of 187 Member States and Territories. ...

Buys-Ballot's law states that if a person in the Northern Hemisphere stands with his back to the wind, the low atmospheric pressure is found to his left. His main research effort in meteorology went into examining long time series for regularities; he was more concerned with establishing the regularities than in explaining them. He made no contributions to the theory of meteorology which is perhaps surprising given his training in physics. The contrast with his American contemporary and slightly earlier discoverer of Buy-Ballot's law William Ferrel is striking. C.H.D. Buys Ballot Buys-Ballots law, in meteorology, is the name given to a law which may be expressed as follows: In the Northern Hemisphere, stand with your back to the wind; the low pressure area will be on your left. ... The Northern Hemisphere is the half of a planets surface (or celestial sphere) that is north of the equator (the word hemisphere literally means half ball). On Earth, the Northern Hemisphere contains most of the land and population. ... William Ferrel This page is about the meteorologist; for the comedian, see Will Ferrell. ...

Buys Ballot devised a tabular method for investigating periodicity in time series. In 1847 he used the table now named after him to determine the period of the sun's rotation from daily observations of temperature in the Netherlands from 1729 to 1846. In statistics and signal processing, a time series is a sequence of data points, measured typically at successive times, spaced apart at uniform time intervals. ...

Bibliography

• Harold L. Burstyn "Buys Ballot, Christoph Hendrik Diederik" Dictionary of Scientific Biography volume 1, p. 628, New York: Scribners 1973.
• E. van Everdingen C. H. D. Buys Ballot 1817-1890 The Hague 1953.
• O. B. Sheynin On the History of the Statistical Method in Meteorology, Archive for the History of the Exact Sciences, 31, (1984-5) 53-95.
• J. L. Klein Statistical Visions in Time, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1997.

External links

• M. Buys-Ballot, "Note sur le rapport de l'intensite et de la direction du vent avec les ecarts simultanes du barometre ", Comptes Rendus, Vol. 45 (1857), pp. 765–768.