Jonathan Homer Lane

Jonathan Homer Lane ( born August 9, 1819 in Geneseo, New York, † May 3, 1880 in Washington, DC ) was an American astrophysicist and inventor.

Lane came from a farming family and received his early education in large part from his parents. From 1839 he attended the Phillips ' Academy in Exeter, New Hampshire. In 1846 he graduated from it then studying mathematics at Yale University.

After brief activities as a teacher and in the Coast Survey ( a predecessor agency of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration ) in 1848 he took a position at the patent office, where he remained a 'principal examiner " to 1857. After he stopped there for political reasons, he opened a Washington patent attorney office and continued in that occupation for several years after. During this time he began to build devices, among them claims to be an electrical machine that was able to determine the real roots of polynomials, and an optical telegraph. He was also interested in the mathematical concepts of induction, led his experiments but is not likely to end by.

1860 Lane moved to Pennsylvania, where new oil fields were developed in Venange County, improving the earning potential existed when in Washington. But in 1866 he returned to give back to the science again, first with his long -time friend Joseph Henry. He studied experimentally with the absolute zero temperature and 1870 with the mercury, for which he worked for the Office of Weights and Measures since 1869. In the same year his studies on the temperature of the sun and its inner structure appeared. These studies on the thermodynamic structure of a self- gravitating gaseous sphere should make him the founder of the theory of stellar evolution, together with Robert Emden, he is the namesake of the Lane -Emden equation. Their solutions provide the temperature and density profile in such a simplified stellar model and also allow a calculation of the stellar radius, in which the thermodynamic pressure and the gravity is balanced.

At the same time Lane employed but also with the effects of tidal forces and the coefficient of linear expansion of the British Standard Yard.

His contemporaries saw him as a slow, conscientious people who used to express themselves carefully and mathematically precise. He remained single all his life.

The lunar crater Lane (9 ° 30 'S, 132 ° 00 'E / 9.5 ° S 132.0 ° E ) bears his name.

Publications

• On the law of electric conduction in metals. - Am. Jour. Sci. 1846 (2), I, 230-241.
• Notice of a novel mode of discharging a Leyden battery, with at explanation of its theory. - Am. Jour. Sci., 1849 ( 2), VII, 418-419.
• On the law of the induction of an electrical current upon Itself and of electrical discharges in straight wires. - Proc. Am. Assoc. Adv Sci. Charleston, in 1850, I I I, 359-361.
• On the law of the induction of an electric current upon Itself When developed in a straight prismatic conductor, and of discharges of machine electricity through wires straight. - Am. Jour. Sci., 1851 ( 2), XI, 17-35.
• A visual method of effecting a precise automatic comparison of time between distant stations. - Am. Jour. Sci., 1860 ( 2), XXIX, 43-49.
• On a mode of Employing instantaneous photography as a Means for the accurate determination of the path and velocity of a shooting star, with a view to the determination of its orbit. - Am. Jour. Sci., 1860 ( 2), XX, '42 - 45th - Jour. Photogr. Soc, 1860, VI, 302-304.
• On the physical constitution of the sun (title only). Report Nat. Acad. Sci., Washington, April 15, 1869.
• Report to Mr. Hilgard of observations on the total solar eclipse as Observed at Des Moines, Iowa, August 7, 1869 ( dated August 28, 1869 ). - Coast Survey Rep., 1869, 42, 167-169.
• On observations of the eclipse of the sun made ​​at Des Moines, Iowa, August 7, 1869. A report, dated August 28, 1869, to the Superintendent of yie United States Naval Observatory. Published in Astr. & Met Obs. U. S. Naval Observatory, 1867, Append. II, 165-173.
• On the theoretical temperature of the sun, under the hypothesis of a Gaseous mass Maintaining its volume by its internal heat and DEPENDING on the laws of gases as known to terrestrial experiments. - Am. Jour. Sci., 1870 ( 2), L, 57-74.
• Description of a new form of mercurial horizon, in Which the vibrations are speedily extinguished. - Proc. Am. Assoc. Adv Sci., Troy, 1870, XIX, 59-61.
• Report to Professor Benjamin Peirce, Superintendent, on observations of the total solar eclipse Observed at Catania, Sicily, on December 21, 1870 -. Rep. Coast Survey, 1870, 120-125.
• Description of a new form of mercurial horizon [ invented for the use of the Office of Weights and Measures, in the End of month report its uses will be Mentioned, but the description of the apparatus is givenName in the report of the Coast Survey ]. - Coast Survey Report, 1871, I I, 181-192.
• On the determination of the volume of a sphere (title only). - Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci., New York, October 30, 1873.
• On the coefficient of expansion of the British standard yard, bronze bar no. 11, being a new discussion of the experiment of Sheepshanks and of Clarke. - Report C. and G. Survey, 1877, 148, 155-166.

( This is chapter XV of the report of JE Hilgard on the comparison of American and British standard yards, dated July 10, 1880, Append. XII, C. and G -. Survey Report, 1877. )