Charles Greeley Abbot 337070 226120189 2008-07-16T22:16:58Z Dagrqv 7441316 {{otherpersons|Charles Abbot}} {{Infobox Scientist |name = Charles Greeley Abbot |box_width = |image =Charles Greeley Abbot00.jpg |image_width =150px |caption = Portrait of Charles Greeley Abbot |birth_date = [[May 31]], [[1872]] |birth_place = [[Wilton, New Hampshire]], [[United States]] |death_date = {{death date and age|1973|12|17|1872|5|31}} |death_place = [[Washington D.C.]], [[United States]] |residence = |citizenship = |nationality = [[United States|American]] |ethnicity = |field = [[astrophysics]] |work_institutions = |alma_mater = |doctoral_advisor = |doctoral_students = |known_for = |author_abbrev_bot = |author_abbrev_zoo = |influences = |influenced = |prizes = |religion = |footnotes = |signature = }} '''Charles Greeley Abbot''' ([[May 31]], [[1872]] &ndash; [[December 17]], [[1973]])<ref>{{cite web|title = Charles Greeley Abbot - BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS|publisher = National Academy of Sciences|url = http://www.nap.edu/readingroom/books/biomems/cabbot.html|accessdate = 2008-05-09}}</ref> was an [[United States|American]] [[astrophysicist]], [[astronomer]] and Secretary of the [[Smithsonian Institution]]. He was born in [[Wilton, New Hampshire]]. [[Image:Charles Greeley Abbot.jpg|thumb|120px|Charles G. Abbot, at the 9th Annual Aircraft Engineering Research Conference, 1934]] ==Life== Abbot graduated from [[Phillips Academy]] in 1891 and [[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]]. 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 [[watt]]s per [[square meter]]). 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]]. 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]]. From 1941 he was an original standing committee member of the [[Foundation for the Study of Cycles]]. 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. ==Awards== Abbot won the [[Henry Draper Medal]] of the [[United States National Academy of Sciences|National Academy of Sciences]] in 1910 and the [[Rumford Prize]] of the [[American Academy of Arts and Sciences]] in 1915. ==Studies== Abbot pushed to provide funding to [[rocket]] pioneer [[Robert Goddard (scientist)|Robert Goddard]] during [[World War I]], but to his disappointment this was canceled after the end of the war. 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. 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 [[Earth's atmosphere|atmospheric]] transmission and [[absorption (optics)|absorption]]. Abbot perfected various standardised instruments now widely used for measuring the [[sun]]'s heat, and he invented devices utilizing [[solar energy]]. In 1938, Abbot authored perhaps his most singular study, although anonymously. This was his contribution to the ''Journal of Parapsychology'', detailing his studies into clairvoyance. Here he stated that clairvoyance had become as evidential to him as gravitation. His findings were later recognized to represent the first statistical identification of the "[[Displacement (psiology, parapsychology, psychical science)|displacement effect]]" in [[parapsychology]]. He published a replication of his findings, this time under his own name, in the ''Journal'' in 1949. [[Abbot (crater)|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. He died in [[Washington D.C.]]. ==References== {{reflist}} ==External links== * [http://www.nap.edu/readingroom/books/biomems/cabbot.html National Academy of Sciences biography] * [http://adsabs.harvard.edu//full/seri/QJRAS/0018//0000136.000.html QJRAS '''18''' (1977) 136] * [http://uwdc.library.wisc.edu/ The University of Wisconsin Digital Collections Center] presents [http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/HistSciTech.SmithSnSciSer 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). {{start box}} {{succession box | before=[[Charles Doolittle Walcott]] | title=[[Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution]] | years=1928-1944 | after=[[Alexander Wetmore]] }} {{end box}} {{DEFAULTSORT:Abbot, Charles Greeley}} [[Category:American astronomers]] [[Category:Astronomers]] [[Category:American centenarians]] [[Category:1872 births]] [[Category:1973 deaths]] [[Category:Smithsonian Institution people]] [[Category:Scientific instrument makers]] [[bn:চার্লস গ্রিলে অ্যাবট]] [[bg:Чарлз Грийли Абът]] [[de:Charles Greeley Abbot]] [[es:Charles Greeley Abbot]] [[fr:Charles Greeley Abbot]] [[hr:Charles Greeley Abbot]] [[it:Charles Greeley Abbot]] [[lv:Čārlzs Ebots]] [[lb:Charles Greeley Abbot]] [[ja:チャールズ・アボット]] [[pl:Charles Greeley Abbot]] [[pt:Charles Greeley Abbot]] [[ro:Charles Greeley Abbot]] [[ru:Аббот, Чарлз Грили]] [[sk:Charles Greeley Abbot]] [[sl:Charles Greeley Abbot]] [[fi:Charles Greeley Abbot]] [[sv:Charles Greeley Abbot]] [[tr:Charles Greeley Abbot]] [[zh:查理斯·艾博特]]