Background
Harold Spencer Jones was born on March 29, 1890, in Kensington, London.
(Annals of the International Geophysical Year, Part I: Nuc...)
Annals of the International Geophysical Year, Part I: Nuclear Radiation: Techniques for Radioactivity Measurements covers the techniques for radioactivity measurement, observations of aurora and airglow, and instructions for the longitude and altitude program. This book is organized into three parts encompassing 11 chapters. The first part presents the techniques for radioactivity measurements. The second part describes the geographical distribution, visual observations, and photographic and photometric evaluations of aurora and airglow. The third part provides instructions for operation of the moon-position camera, including camera settings and operation, field plotting, and star marking. This part also presents additional instructions for PZT use in the longitude and latitude program. This book will prove useful to geophysicists and researchers in the allied fields.
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(Annals of the International Geophysical Year, Part IV: Ge...)
Annals of the International Geophysical Year, Part IV: Geomagnetism covers the principles and methods of observation of geomagnetism. This book is organized into four parts encompassing 17 chapters that also consider the concept of seismology and cosmic radiation. The first two parts focus on geomagnetism, its general principles, technique of scaling, method of measurement, and equipment for recording. These parts also provide results of geomagnetic activity obtained the Earth-current installation at the U.S.S.R. stations. The third part presents the monthly bulletins containing the reduced data on seismological activity during the International Geophysical Year. This part also deals with the use of seismological codes for data transmission from seismograms. The fourth part describes the instrumentation for measuring cosmic-ray intensity changes and the design specifications for a meson intensity recorder. This book is directed toward to geophysicists.
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Harold Spencer Jones was born on March 29, 1890, in Kensington, London.
He was educated at Latymer Upper School, in Hammersmith, from where he obtained a scholarship to Jesus College, Cambridge. He graduated there in 1911, and was awarded a postgraduate studentship. He subsequently became a Fellow of the college.
After studies at the University of Cambridge, Jones became chief assistant at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich in 1913, but his astronomical career was soon to be interrupted when, during the First World War, his scientific abilities —particularly in optics—were put at the disposal of the Ministry of Munitions. in 1923 he was appointed H. M. Astronomer at the Cape of Good Hope Observatory, and ten years later he returned to Greenwich as Astronomer Royal.
His first research after the War was on the proper motions of the brighter stars within 17° of the north pole in relation to spectral type. This was followed by a pioneer investigation on the absorbtion of light in interstellar space, attributed to selected scattering.
An impressive series of observations with the Cookson floating telescope, used for the determination of latitude variation arising from minute fluctuations in the position of the earth's rotational axis, were analyzed by Spencer Jones with such success that the appropriate values of the latitude were used in the reduction of the relevant observations of planets and stars.
On his arrival at the Cape, Spencer Jones found several long series of observations still awaiting treatment and soon he was embarked on the most prolific period of his career. He first dealt with observations of occultations of stars by the moon, made between 1880 and 1922. He next tackled the long series of observations of the sun, Mercury, Venus and Mars made at the Cape between 1836 and 1924. Here he detected residual fluctuations in the longitudes of the four bodies which showed parallel characteriscics. These fluctuations he attributed to irregularities in the rate of rotation of the earth—a subject which engrossed his attention for over three decades.
Observations of Mars at the favourable opposition of 1924 provided an introduction to the difficult problem of determining the solar parallax and, although the final result was not of high weight, the investigation must have afforded Spencer Jones a deep insight into the subtleties to be encountered in his later and famous determination of the solar parallax. No fewer than twenty-four observations took part, with Spencer Jones in charge of the preliminary arrangements and of the subsequent calculations. The final result, announced in 1940, corresponding to the average distance of the earth from the sun of 93, 005, 000 miles, is not likely to be supplanted, if at all, for many decades to come.
Shortly after his arrival at the Cape, Spencer Jones began a systematic programme of measuring stellar distances at a time when several observatories had been lured away from this fundamental work by the more exciting developments in spectroscopy. When he left for Greenwich, about 500 parallaxes had benn published - and the work is still going on, to the great advantage of astronomy in general.
Even before the end of the Second World War the removal of the Observatory from Greenwich became inevitable owing to the increasing pollution of the atmosphere and to modern street-lighting. In due course, but after many delays and frustrations, the instruments and staff were transferred to Herstmonceux Castle in Sussex.
He was President of the National Astronomical Union in the difficult post—war years 1945-1948, and the first President of the Institute of Navigation on its foundation in 1947.
After his retirement in 1955 Spencer Jones occupied with acceptance the important post of Secretary General of the International Council of Scientific Unions.
Sir Harold Spencer Jones died on November 3, 1960, aged 70. His cause of death was cardiac arrest.
(Annals of the International Geophysical Year, Part I: Nuc...)
(Annals of the International Geophysical Year, Part IV: Ge...)
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Harold Spencer Jones was an honorary member of numerous astronomical and scientific societies and a Foreign Associate of many academies and institutes. He became an Honorary Member of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada in 1947, and an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1951.
In 1918 Harold Spencer Jones married Gladys Mary Owers, they had two sons.