Background

Henry Crozier Keating Plummer was born on October 24, 1875, in Oxford, England. Plummer was the son of William Edward Plummer (1849–1928) and nephew of the distinguished astronomer John Isaac Plummer.

Education

The son of an astronomer, Plummer gained his education at St. Edward's School and then graduated from Hertford College, Oxford, with first-class honors.

Career

After the graduation from Hertford College, Oxford in 1901, Plummer became an assistant at the Oxford University Observatory.

In 1912 Plummer was appointed astronomer royal of Ireland, a post once occupied by William Hamilton. It is said that Plummer wanted to concentrate on observational astronomy but that the Irish climate frustrated him and enforced a preoccupation with theoretical topics. His isolation and the quality of instruments at the Dunsink Observatory (there had been no new equipment since the 1860’s) increased his dissatisfaction.

In 1921 he resigned from this post and became a professor of mathematics at the Royal Artillery College, where he remained until his retirement in 1940.

In addition to his many research papers and Dynamical Astronomy, Plummer wrote two other books: Principles of Mechanics (1929) and Probability and Frequency (1939). He was preparing an edition of Newton’s works at the time of his death.

Although his contemporaries made greater innovations, Plummer did not lack originality and he was a superb expositor.

Achievements

• Plummer became recognized as a prominent scientist primarily for his book Dynamical Astronomy (1918), which is still used as a text and reference in theoretical and practical celestial mechanics and is valued for both its content and its style. During his lifetime he worked on many topics, including the Astrographic Chart and Catalogue, cometary motion (including nongravitational forces), stellar motions, spectroscopic binaries, and the dynamics of globular star clusters.
  
  Also, in 1911 he developed a gravitational potential function that can be used to model globular clusters and spherically-symmetric galaxies, known as the Plummer potential.
  
  The crater Plummer on the Moon is named after him.

Works

More photos

• book

  • An Introductory Treatise On Dynamical Astronomy 1918

Views

In addition to dynamics, Plummer was interested in the accuracy of measurements, the theory of errors, and in mathematical methods applied to astronomical computations.

Membership

Plummer was elected a fellow of the Royal Society (1920) and was a member and a president of the Royal Astronomical Society (1939).

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  Royal Society , United Kingdom

  1920 - 1946

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  Royal Astronomical Society , United Kingdom

  1939 - 1946

Connections

In 1924 Plummer was married to Beatrice Howard but there were no children to this marriage.

Father:

William Edward Plummer

1849–1928

Uncle:

John Isaac Plummer

1845-1925

Wife:

Beatrice Howard

References

• Dictionary of Scientific Biography
  1975