Edward Walter Maunder

Edward Walter Maunder ( born April 12, 1851 in London, † March 21, 1928 same place ) was an English astronomer and Bible researcher who was known on the earth especially through his work on solar magnetism and its influence.

Career

Maunder was born as the youngest child of a Methodist preacher. He attended King's College, University of London, without completing their studies. He financed his studies with a job in a bank.

In 1873 he accepted a position as assistant at the Royal Greenwich Observatory for spectroscopy. His duties included photographing and measuring of sunspots. He discovered that the latitude at which sunspots appear, vary with the 11- year cycle of sunspot frequency. In 1904 he published his results in the form of butterfly graphic.

Since 1891 he has been in his photographic works from his future wife Annie Maunder, née Annie Scott Dill Russell, supported. She was a trained in Cambridge at Girton College mathematician who had received an auxiliary job as a "human computer " at the Royal Observatory.

Inspired by the work of Gustav Sporer, who had spotted a period of reduced sunspot number from 1400 to 1510 ( the Spörer minimum), Maunder searched the archives of the observatory and was 1893 then announce which was later named after him Maunder Minimum, which is now on the period 1645 is dated to 1715.

He also observed Mars and was very skeptical in the question of the canals of Mars. Experiments convinced him that it would have to be optical illusions. Contrary to popular opinion at the time he denied even the possibility of life on Mars, at least in the form as on Earth. He based this in part to the low temperatures and on the other to the absence of temperature- compensating winch. In his honor, a crater on the Moon and a Mars crater named after him.

Maunder was a driving force in the founding of the British Astronomical Association 1890. Since 1875 He was a member ( Fellow ) of the Royal Astronomical Society, but he wanted to found an association of astronomers ( amateurs and professionals ), all interested parties irrespective of caste and gender in particular could join. Thus, women were actively involved from the beginning, which could join until 1915 the Royal Astronomical Society. ( His wife was one of the first 1916 members. ) He was the first editor of the journal members, a feature that later held his wife. His older brother Thomas Frid Maunder (1841-1935) was a founder and for 38 years secretary. The couple Maunder participated in several observational campaigns.

Maunder was married twice. In 1875 he married Edith Hannah Bustin. In marriage five children were born. Hannah Maunder died in 1888 at TBC. In 1895 he married Annie Scott Dill Russell. This marriage remained childless.

Publications

• E. Maunder: Astronomy without a Telescope (1902 )
• E. W. Maunder: Note on the distribution of sun -spots in heliographic latitude, 1874-1902, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol 64, (1904 ) p.747 -761
• E. Maunder: Astronomy of the Bible: An Elementary Commentary on the Astronomical References in the Holy Scripture (1908 )
• A. and E. Maunder: The Heavens and Their Story (1909 )
• E. Maunder: Are the Planets Inhabited ( 1913)?