Charles G. Abbot, at the 9th Annual Aircraft Engineering Research Conference, 1934

Charles Greeley Abbot (May 31, 1872 Wilton, NH – December 17, 1973, Washington D.C.) was an American astrophysicist, astronomer and Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. He was born in Wilton, New Hampshire. Image File history File links Charles_Greeley_Abbot. ... Image File history File links Charles_Greeley_Abbot. ... May 31 is the 151st day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (152nd in leap years), with 214 days remaining. ... 1872 (MDCCCLXXII) was a leap year starting on Monday (see link for calendar) of the Gregorian calendar or a leap year starting on Wednesday of the 12-day-slower Julian calendar. ... Location in Hillsborough County, New Hampshire Coordinates: Country United States State New Hampshire County Hillsborough County Incorporated 1762 Board of Selectmen Daniel E. Donovan III, Chair Jerry W. Greene Richard D. Rockwood Area    - City 67. ... December 17 is the 351st day of the year (352nd in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 1973 (MCMLXXIII) was a common year starting on Monday. ... Aerial photo (looking NW) of the Washington Monument and the White House in Washington, DC. Washington, D.C., officially the District of Columbia (also known as D.C.; Washington; the Nations Capital; the District; and, historically, the Federal City) is the capital city and administrative district of the United... An astrophysicist is a person whose profession is astrophysics. ... An astronomer or astrophysicist is a person whose area of interest is astronomy or astrophysics. ... The Smithsonian Institution Building or Castle on the National Mall serves as the Institutions headquarters. ... Wilton is a town in Hillsborough County, New Hampshire, USA. The population was 3,743 at the 2000 census. ...

--211.27.69.16 14:31, 30 December 2006 (UTC)==Life== Abbot graduated from MIT in 1894 with a degree in chemical physics. Samuel Pierpont Langley was looking for an assistant at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (SAO), and hired Abbot in 1895 because of his skill at laboratory work, despite his lack of experience in astronomy. Mapúa Institute of Technology (MIT, MapúaTech or simply Mapúa) is a private, non-sectarian, Filipino tertiary institute located in Intramuros, Manila. ... Chemical physics is a subdiscipline of physics that investigates physicochemical phenomena using techniques from atomic and molecular physics and condensed matter physics; it is the branch of physics that studies chemical processes from the point of view of physics. ... Samuel Pierpont Langley. ... The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (SAO) is a research institute of the Smithsonian Institution headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where it is joined with the Harvard College Observatory (HCO) to form the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA). ... A giant Hubble mosaic of the Crab Nebula, a supernova remnant. ...

Langley focussed on aeronautics experiments, while Abbot became acting director of the SAO in 1896. When Langley died in 1906, Abbot succeed him as director (in 1907), and Charles Walcott became Smithsonian secretary. Abbot, recognising that the solar constant was badly approximated, proposed a more accurate value of 1.93 cal/cm²/min for the solar constant (the modern value is measured in watts per square meter). Six F-16 Fighting Falcons with the U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds aerial demonstration team fly in delta formation in front of the Empire State Building. ... Charles Doolittle Walcott (March 31, 1850 _ February 9, 1927) was an eminent American invertebrate paleontologist. ... Solar irradiance spectrum at top of atmosphere. ... Solar irradiance spectrum at top of atmosphere. ... The watt (symbol: W) is the SI derived unit of power, equal to one joule per second. ... A square metre (US spelling: square meter) is by definition the area enclosed by a square with sides each 1 metre long. ...

Abbot was secretary of the Smithsonian Institution from 1928 to 1944. Responsible for the observatory's solar observations, he designed and built devices for measuring solar radiation, including a greatly improved bolometer which measured the Sun's inner corona at the 1900 solar eclipse in Wadesboro, North Carolina. The Smithsonian Institution Building or Castle on the National Mall serves as the Institutions headquarters. ... Rendition of an imaging bolometer from Los Alamos National Laboratory A bolometer is a device for measuring incident electromagnetic radiation. ... In astronomy, a corona is the luminous plasma atmosphere of the Sun or other celestial body, extending millions of kilometres into space, most easily seen during a total solar eclipse, but also observable in a coronagraph. ... Photo taken during the 1999 eclipse. ... Wadesboro is a town located in Anson County, North Carolina. ...

In 1918 Abbot became Assistant Secretary of the Smithsonian Institute. He succeeded Walcott as Secretary in 1928, and guided the Institute through the turbulent years of the Great Depression and World War II. The Great Depression was an economic downturn which started in 1929 and lasted through most of the 1930s. ... Combatants Major Allied powers: United Kingdom Soviet Union United States Republic of China and others Major Axis powers: Nazi Germany Italy Japan and others Commanders Winston Churchill Joseph Stalin Franklin Roosevelt Harry Truman Chiang Kai-Shek Adolf Hitler Benito Mussolini Hideki Tojo Casualties Military dead: 17,000,000 Civilian dead...

In 1939, Abbot authored perhaps his most singular study, although anonymously. This was his contribution to the Journal of Parapsychology. This served to later credit Abbot, within parapsychology, as the discoverer of the "displacement effect": a characteristic quality of otherwise anomalous cognition. Abbot replicated his findings in subsequent experiments with himself as subject, this time brave enough to publish them by name (1949). By this time, however, other researchers had already published independent claims - with less subjectively limited data - of discovery of Abbot's anonymously announced "displacement effect". And so the English psychical researcher, Whatley Carington, is today more rightly credited with discovery of the effect. Parapsychology is the study of certain types of paranormal phenomena (parapsychology comes from the Greek para, “beside, beyond,” + psychology, derived from the Greek psyche, “soul, mind,” + logos “rational discussion”). The term was coined by Max Dessoir (1889). ... Look up displacement in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...

Abbot retired as both SAO director and Smithsonian Secretary in 1944, being the first Smithsonian Secretary not to die in office. He delegated the National Museum largely to his Assistant Secretary, Alexander Wetmore, who succeeded him as Secretary in 1944. Frank Alexander Wetmore (June 18, 1886 _ December 7, 1978) was an American ornithologist and avian paleontologist. ...

Awards

Abbot won the Henry Draper Medal of the National Academy of Sciences in 1910 and the Rumford Prize of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1915. The Henry Draper Medal was established by the widow of Henry Draper, and is awarded by the US National Academy of Sciences for contributions to astrophysics. ... President Harding and the National Academy of Sciences at the White House, Washington, DC, April 1921 The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a corporation in the United States whose members serve pro bono as advisers to the nation on science, engineering, and medicine. ... Not to be confused with the Rumford Medal In 1796, Benjamin Thompson, known as Count Rumford, gave $5000 separately to the Royal Society of London and the other by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences to give awards every two years for outstanding scientific research on heat or light. ... The House of the Academy, Cambridge, Massachusetts. ...

Studies

Abbot pushed to provide funding to rocket pioneer Robert Goddard during World War I, but to his disappointment this was canceled after the end of the war. A Redstone rocket, part of the Mercury program The traditional definition of a rocket is a vehicle, missile or aircraft which obtains thrust by the reaction to the ejection of fast moving fluid from within a rocket engine. ... Robert Goddard Robert Hutchings Goddard (October 5, 1882 – August 10, 1945) was one of the pioneers of modern rocketry. ... {{Infobox Military Conflict |conflict = World War I |partof = |image = |caption = Clockwise from top: Trenches on the Western Front; a British Mark IV tank crossing a trench; Royal Navy battleship HMS Irresistible sinking after striking a mine at the Battle of the Dardanelles; a Vickers machine gun crew with gas masks...

Abbot, like Langley, pursued the idea that the Sun's radiation was variable and that this variability could influence weather. He persistently searched for variations in the solar constant, hoping that these could be used for weather forecasting, and believed that he had detected such variations, on the order of 3% to 10%. However, modern measurements of greater accuracy indicate that such variability does not occur, apart from tiny variations due to sunspots and faculae. The Sun is the star of our solar system. ... 400 year sunspot history A sunspot is a region on the Suns surface (photosphere) that is marked by a lower temperature than its surroundings, and intense magnetic activity. ...

He completed the mapping of the infrared solar spectrum and carried out systematic studies of variation in solar radiation, its relation to the sunspot cycle, and its effect on weather variation. He also studied the nature of atmospheric transmission and absorption. Abbot perfected various standardised instruments now widely used for measuring the sun's heat, and he invented devices utilizing solar energy. Image of two girls in mid-infrared (thermal) light (false color) Infrared (IR) radiation is electromagnetic radiation of a wavelength longer than that of visible light, but shorter than that of radio waves. ... In most modern usages of the word spectrum, there is a unifying theme of between extremes at either end. ... A sunspot is a region on the Suns surface (photosphere) that is marked by a lower temperature than its surroundings and intense magnetic activity, which inhibits convection, forming areas of low surface temperature. ... Weather is a term that encompasses phenomena in the atmosphere of a planet. ... Layers of Atmosphere (NOAA) Air redirects here. ... Absorption, in optics, is the process by which the energy of a photon is taken up by another entity, for example, by an atom whose valence electrons make a transition between two electronic energy levels. ... The Sun is the star of our solar system. ... Solar power describes a number of methods of harnessing energy from the light of the sun. ...

Abbot crater on the Moon is named after him; an exception was made and it was named for him while he was still alive. He obtained his last patent at the age of 101, the oldest inventor to ever receive a patent. Abbot is a small lunar impact crater that lies on the rugged ground between the Mare Fecunditatis in the south and west, and the Mare Crisium to the north. ... Adjective lunar Bulk silicate composition (estimated wt%) SiO2 44. ...

External links

• National Academy of Sciences biography
• QJRAS 18 (1977) 136
• The University of Wisconsin Digital Collections Center presents The Smithsonian Scientific Series and the following digitized articles originally published by C.G. Abbot: Abbot, Charles Greeley The sun and the welfare of man (1938), Abbot, C. G. (Charles Greeley), 1872 Great inventions (1932), Bishop, Carl Whiting, 1881-1942; Abbot, Charles Greeley; Hrdlicka, Aleš Man from the farthest past (1930).