Background
Russell, Henry Norris was born on October 25, 1877 in Oyster Bay, New York, United States. Son of Alexander Gatherer and Eliza Hoxie (Norris) Russell.
Russell, Henry Norris was born on October 25, 1877 in Oyster Bay, New York, United States. Son of Alexander Gatherer and Eliza Hoxie (Norris) Russell.
Bachelor of Arts, Princeton, 1897, Master of Arts, 1898, Doctor of Philosophy, 1899. Research student, King’s College, Cambridge University, England, 1902-1903. Docteur, Lauvain, 1927.
Honorary Doctor of Science, Dartmouth, 1923, Harvard, 1929, University of Chicago, 1941, Michoacau, Mexico, 1942, Yale, 1951, Princeton, 1954.
In 1923, working with Frederick Saunders, he developed Russell–Saunders coupling which is also known as Liberal Studies coupling. From 1903 to 1905, he worked at the Cambridge Observatory with Arthur Robert Hinks as a research assistant of the Carnegie Institution and came under the strong influence of George Darwin. He returned to Princeton to become an instructor in astronomy (1905–1908), assistant professor (1908–1911), professor (1911–1927) and research professor (1927–1947).
He was also the director of the Princeton University Observatory from 1912 to 1947.
He died in Princeton, New Jersey in 1957 at the age of 79. In November 1908 Russell married Lucy May Cole (1881-1968).
They had four children. Their youngest daughter, Margaret, married the astronomer Frank K. Edmondson in the 1930s.
Henry Norris Russell dissuaded Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin from concluding that the composition of the Sun is different from that of the Earth in her papers, as it contradicted the accepted wisdom at the time.
However, he changed his mind four years later after deriving the same result by different means. After Payne was proven correct, Russell briefly credited Payne for discovering that the Sun had a different chemical composition from Earth in his paper. However the cr was still generally given to him instead.
Henry Norris Russell, Frederick Albert Saunders (1925).
"New Regularities in the Spectra of the Alkaline Earths". Astrophysical Journal 61: 38–69.
Bibcode:1925ApJ..61..38R. doi:10.1086/142872. Henry Norris Russell, Raymond Smith Dugan, John Quincy Stewart (1945).
Astronomy: A Revision of Young’s Manual of Astronomy.
Volume I: The Solar System. Volume II: Astrophysics and Stellar Astronomy.
Boston: Ginn & Company Henry Norris Russell (1929).
"On the Composition of the Sun"s Atmosphere". Astrophysical Journal 70: 11–82. Bibcode:1929ApJ..70..11R. doi:10.1086/143197.
Henry Norris Russell (1937).
"Model Stars (13th Josiah Willard Gibbs Lecture)". Bulletin. America Mathematics Society
43 (2): 49–77. doi:10.1090/S0002-9904-1937-06492-5. Magnetic Resonance 1563489.
Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (president 1933). Member National Academy Sciences, American Philosophical Society (president 1931-1932), American Academy Arts and Sciences, American Astronomical Society (president 1934-1937), American Physical Society. Member Royal Society, 1937.
Married Lucy May Cole, November 24, 1908. Children: Lucy May, Elizabeth Hoxie, Henry Norris, Emma Margaret.