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William Wallace Campbell

 

 
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William Wallace Campbell (11 April 1862 – 14 June 1938) was an American astronomer
Astronomer

An astronomer is a scientist who studies Celestial body such as planets, stars, and Galaxy.Historically, astronomy was more concerned with the classification and description of phenomena in the sky, while astrophysics attempted to explain these phenomena and the differences between them using physical laws....
, and director of Lick Observatory
Lick Observatory

The Lick Observatory is an astronomy observatory, owned and operated by the University of California. It is situated on the summit of Mount Hamilton , in the Diablo Range just east of San Jose, California, USA....
 from 1900 to 1930. He specialized in spectroscopy
Spectroscopy

Spectroscopy was originally the study of the interaction between radiation and matter as a function of wavelength . In fact, historically, spectroscopy referred to the use of visible light dispersed according to its wavelength, e.g....
.

Campbell was a pioneer of astronomical spectroscopy, he catalogued the radial velocities of stars, and was a director of Lick Observatory from 1901 to 1930. He served as 10th President of the University of California
University of California

The University of California is a public university system in the U.S. state of California. Under the California Master Plan for Higher Education, the University of California is a part of the state's three-tier public higher education system, which also includes the California State University system and the California Community Colleges s...
 from 1923 to 1930.

He led a team to Australia in 1919 where he photographed a solar eclipse.






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William Wallace Campbell (11 April 1862 – 14 June 1938) was an American astronomer
Astronomer

An astronomer is a scientist who studies Celestial body such as planets, stars, and Galaxy.Historically, astronomy was more concerned with the classification and description of phenomena in the sky, while astrophysics attempted to explain these phenomena and the differences between them using physical laws....
, and director of Lick Observatory
Lick Observatory

The Lick Observatory is an astronomy observatory, owned and operated by the University of California. It is situated on the summit of Mount Hamilton , in the Diablo Range just east of San Jose, California, USA....
 from 1900 to 1930. He specialized in spectroscopy
Spectroscopy

Spectroscopy was originally the study of the interaction between radiation and matter as a function of wavelength . In fact, historically, spectroscopy referred to the use of visible light dispersed according to its wavelength, e.g....
.

Campbell was a pioneer of astronomical spectroscopy, he catalogued the radial velocities of stars, and was a director of Lick Observatory from 1901 to 1930. He served as 10th President of the University of California
University of California

The University of California is a public university system in the U.S. state of California. Under the California Master Plan for Higher Education, the University of California is a part of the state's three-tier public higher education system, which also includes the California State University system and the California Community Colleges s...
 from 1923 to 1930.

He led a team to Australia in 1919 where he photographed a solar eclipse. The data obtained was provided further evidence supporting Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein

Albert Einstein was a Germany-born theoretical physics. He is best known for his theory of relativity and specifically mass?energy equivalence, expressed by the equation E = mc2....
 prove the theory of relativity
Theory of relativity

File:spacetime curvature.pngThe theory of relativity, or simply relativity, generally refers specifically to two theories of Albert Einstein: special relativity and general relativity....
.

He committed suicide
Suicide

Suicide is the intentional taking of one's own life. Many dictionaries also note the metaphorical sense of "willful destruction of one's self-interest"....
 at the age of 76. He was mostly blind and suffering from bouts of aphasia
Aphasia

Aphasia , also known as rhymnasia, is a loss of the ability to produce and/or comprehend language, due to injury to brain areas specialized for these functions, such as Broca's area, which governs language production, or Wernicke's area, which governs the interpretation of language....
. This was not only very frustrating to him, but he felt that it left him a burden to his family in terms of care and expense, according to notes he left behind at the time of his death.

Honours and awards

  • Henry Draper Medal
    Henry Draper Medal

    The Henry Draper Medal was established by the widow of Henry Draper, and is awarded by the U.S. United States National Academy of Sciences for contributions to astrophysics....
     (1906)
  • Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society
    Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society

    The Gold Medal is the highest award of the Royal Astronomical Society....
     (1906)
  • Bruce Medal
    Bruce Medal

    The Catherine Wolfe Bruce Gold Medal is awarded every year by the Astronomical Society of the Pacific for outstanding lifetime contributions to astronomy....
     (1915)
  • Crater Campbell
    Campbell (lunar crater)

    Campbell is a large Moon Impact crater that is located in the northern hemisphere on the Far side of the Moon. It lies to the southwest of the walled plain D'Alembert , an even larger formation....
     on the Moon
    Moon

    The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite and the List of natural satellites by diameter satellite in the Solar System. The average centre-to-centre distance from the Earth to the Moon is km, about thirty times the diameter of the Earth....
  • Crater
    Impact crater

    In the broadest sense, the term impact crater can be applied to any depression, natural or manmade, resulting from the high velocity impact of a projectile with larger body....
     on Mars
  • Asteroid
    Asteroid

    Asteroids, sometimes called minor planets or planetoids, are small Solar System bodies in orbit around the Sun, smaller than planets but larger than meteoroids....
     2751 Campbell
    2751 Campbell

    2751 Campbell is a main belt asteroid with a perihelion of 2.7152179 Astronomical unit. It has an Eccentricity of 0.1739676 and an orbital period of 1363.4843145 days ....


External links

Obituaries