Arthur Cowper Ranyard
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Arthur Cowper Ranyard (21 June 1845 – 14 December 1894) was an English astrophysicist.


Life

Born at Swanscombe, Kent, he was son of Benjamin Ranyard by his wife
Ellen Henrietta Ranyard Ellen Henrietta Ranyard (9 January 1810 – 11 February 1879) was an English writer and missionary who worked with the poor of London. She founded the London Bible and Domestic Female Mission. Life She was born Ellen Henrietta White in the di ...
(''née'' White). Ranyard attended
University College School University College School, also known as UCS, is a private day school in Frognal, Hampstead, London, England. The school was founded in 1830 by University College London and inherited many of that institution's progressive and secular views. ...
, London, from 1857 to 1860, afterwards proceeding to
University College In a number of countries, a university college is a college institution that provides tertiary education but does not have full or independent university status. A university college is often part of a larger university. The precise usage varies f ...
. Here the influence of Professor
Augustus De Morgan Augustus De Morgan (27 June 1806 – 18 March 1871) was a British mathematician and logician. He is best known for De Morgan's laws, relating logical conjunction, disjunction, and negation, and for coining the term "mathematical induction", the ...
led him to concentrate his attention on mathematics and astronomy, and he formed an intimate friendship with the professor's son George. In 1864 the two friends formed the plan for a society for the special study of mathematics, and issued a circular inviting attendance at the first meeting of "the University College Mathematical Society" on 7 Nov. 1864. The first meeting mentioned in the minutes of the society, however, was held on 16 January 1865, when De Morgan was elected president, and Messrs. Cozens-Hardy and Henry Mason Bompas secretaries. After the president's inaugural address Ranyard read the first paper, 'On Determinants'. The new association received the support of eminent mathematicians, and ultimately developed into the present
London Mathematical Society The London Mathematical Society (LMS) is one of the United Kingdom's Learned society, learned societies for mathematics (the others being the Royal Statistical Society (RSS), the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications (IMA), the Edinburgh ...
. Proceeding to Cambridge, Ranyard entered Pembroke College in October 1865, and graduated M.A. in 1868. Adopting the law as his profession, he was
called to the bar The call to the bar is a legal term of art in most common law jurisdictions where persons must be qualified to be allowed to argue in court on behalf of another party and are then said to have been "called to the bar" or to have received "call to ...
(
Lincoln's Inn The Honourable Society of Lincoln's Inn, commonly known as Lincoln's Inn, is one of the four Inns of Court (professional associations for Barrister, barristers and judges) in London. To be called to the bar in order to practise as a barrister ...
) in 1871; but his tastes lay in the direction of science, and his means enabled him to devote much of his time to astronomy. He became a fellow of the
Royal Astronomical Society The Royal Astronomical Society (RAS) is a learned society and charitable organisation, charity that encourages and promotes the study of astronomy, planetary science, solar-system science, geophysics and closely related branches of science. Its ...
in 1863, was a member of the council (1872–88 and 1892–4), and was secretary (1874–80). He was assistant secretary of the expedition for observing the total solar eclipse of 1870, and made a successful series of polariscopic observations in Sicily. In 1878 he went to
Colorado Colorado is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States. It is one of the Mountain states, sharing the Four Corners region with Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah. It is also bordered by Wyoming to the north, Nebraska to the northeast, Kansas ...
to view the solar eclipse of that year, which he observed and photographed at a station near Denver In 1882 he observed and photographed the total solar eclipse at
Sohag Sohag (, , ), also spelled as Suhag or Suhaj, is a city on the west bank of the Nile in Egypt. It has been the capital of Sohag Governorate since 1960, before which the capital was Girga and the name of the governorate was Girga Governorate. I ...
in Upper Egypt. He took an interest in public affairs, and in 1892 was elected a member of the
London County Council The London County Council (LCC) was the principal local government body for the County of London throughout its existence from 1889 to 1965, and the first London-wide general municipal authority to be directly elected. It covered the area today ...
, where he did important work, especially in connection with the new
London Building Act 1894 London is the capital and largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Western Europe, with a population of 14.9 million. London stands on the River Thame ...
( 57 & 58 Vict. c. ccxiii), which passed into law in the summer of 1894. In 1872 he made with James Lindsay experiments on photographic irradiation, and in 1886 he investigated the relation between brightness of object, time of exposure, and intensity of photographic action. Ranyard, who was unmarried, lived a somewhat retired life of laborious industry. He was a man of generous spirit, extremely conscientious, and completely devoted to duty. He died of cancer, at his house in Hunter Street, Brunswick Square, on 14 December 1894. A portrait is given in ‘Knowledge’ for February 1895.


Works

His most extensive work in astronomy was the eclipse volume of the Royal Astronomical Society, in which are systematised and discussed the observations of all solar eclipses down to 1878. It was begun with Sir
George Airy Sir George Biddell Airy (; 27 July 18012 January 1892) was an English mathematician and astronomer, as well as the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics from 1826 to 1828 and the seventh Astronomer Royal from 1835 to 1881. His many achievements inc ...
, but soon devolved on Ranyard alone. Started in 1871, it was completed in 1879. In 1888 his friend Richard Anthony Proctor died, leaving his major work, ''Old and New Astronomy,'' incomplete, and Ranyard undertook to finish it for the benefit of the author's family. The chapters which are entirely by Ranyard are those on the universe of stars, the construction of the
Milky Way The Milky Way or Milky Way Galaxy is the galaxy that includes the Solar System, with the name describing the #Appearance, galaxy's appearance from Earth: a hazy band of light seen in the night sky formed from stars in other arms of the galax ...
, and the distribution of
nebulae A nebula (; or nebulas) is a distinct luminescent part of interstellar medium, which can consist of ionized, neutral, or molecular hydrogen and also cosmic dust. Nebulae are often star-forming regions, such as in the Pillars of Creation in th ...
. He also succeeded Proctor as editor of ''Knowledge,'' to which he contributed a long series of articles upon the sun and moon, the milky way, the stellar universe, star-clusters, the density of nebulae, &c. These papers give his mature views on many problems. His most important investigations were those on nebulae, the density of which he concluded to be extremely low, even compared with the Earth's atmosphere, and on star-clusters, which he regarded as showing evidence of the ejection of matter from a centre, and not gradual condensation, as supposed by
Pierre-Simon Laplace Pierre-Simon, Marquis de Laplace (; ; 23 March 1749 – 5 March 1827) was a French polymath, a scholar whose work has been instrumental in the fields of physics, astronomy, mathematics, engineering, statistics, and philosophy. He summariz ...
DNB: (''Knowledge'', vols. xvi. xvii.)


References

;Attribution: {{DEFAULTSORT:Ranyard, Arthur Cowper 1845 births 1894 deaths 19th-century English astronomers Alumni of Pembroke College, Cambridge Members of London County Council Members of Lincoln's Inn Alumni of University College London Fellows of the Royal Astronomical Society People educated at University College School Villasmundo