Christophorus Henricus Diedericus Buys Ballot (; 10 October 1817 – 3 February 1890) was a Dutch

chemist A chemist (from Greek ''chēm(ía)'' alchemy; replacing ''chymist'' from Medieval Latin ''alchemist'') is a graduated scientist trained in the study of chemistry, or an officially enrolled student in the field. Chemists study the composition of ...

and

meteorologist A meteorologist is a scientist who studies and works in the field of meteorology aiming to understand or predict Earth's atmosphere of Earth, atmospheric phenomena including the weather. Those who study meteorological phenomena are meteorologists ...

who is the

namesake A namesake is a person, place, or thing bearing the name of another. Most commonly, it refers to an individual who is purposely named after another (e.g. John F. Kennedy Jr would be the namesake of John F. Kennedy). In common parlance, it may ...

of Buys Ballot's law. He was first chairman of the International Meteorological Organization, the organization that would become the

World Meteorological Organization The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) is a List of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for promoting international cooperation on atmospheric science, climatology, hydrology an ...

Early and personal life

Ballot was born on 10 October 1817, in Kloetinge, to a Dutch Reformed minister. He attended the Gymnasium at

Zaltbommel Zaltbommel (), also known, historically and colloquially, as Bommel, is a municipality and a city in the Netherlands. History The city of Zaltbommel The town of Zaltbommel was first mentioned as "Bomela" in the year 850. Zaltbommel received ...

and the

University A university () is an educational institution, institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several Discipline (academia), academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase , which roughly ...

Utrecht Utrecht ( ; ; ) is the List of cities in the Netherlands by province, fourth-largest city of the Netherlands, as well as the capital and the most populous city of the Provinces of the Netherlands, province of Utrecht (province), Utrecht. The ...

. After receiving his doctorate in 1844, he became lecturer in

mineralogy Mineralogy is a subject of geology specializing in the scientific study of the chemistry, crystal structure, and physical (including optical mineralogy, optical) properties of minerals and mineralized artifact (archaeology), artifacts. Specific s ...

and

geology Geology (). is a branch of natural science concerned with the Earth and other astronomical objects, the rocks of which they are composed, and the processes by which they change over time. Modern geology significantly overlaps all other Earth ...

at Utrecht; he added theoretical

chemistry Chemistry is the scientific study of the properties and behavior of matter. It is a physical science within the natural sciences that studies the chemical elements that make up matter and chemical compound, compounds made of atoms, molecules a ...

in 1846. In 1847, he was appointed professor of

mathematics Mathematics is a field of study that discovers and organizes methods, Mathematical theory, theories and theorems that are developed and Mathematical proof, proved for the needs of empirical sciences and mathematics itself. There are many ar ...

and from 1867 until his retirement he was professor of

physics Physics is the scientific study of matter, its Elementary particle, fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge whi ...

. He died in

, on 3 February 1890, aged 72. In 1970, the

lunar crater Lunar craters are impact craters on Earth's Moon. The Moon's surface has many craters, all of which were formed by impacts. The International Astronomical Union currently recognizes 9,137 craters, of which 1,675 have been dated. History The wo ...

Buys-Ballot, on the

far side of the Moon The far side of the Moon is the hemisphere of the Moon that is facing away from Earth, the opposite hemisphere is the near side. It always has the same surface oriented away from Earth because of synchronous rotation in the Moon's orbit. C ...

, was named in his honour.

Career

Buys Ballot tested the

Doppler effect The Doppler effect (also Doppler shift) is the change in the frequency of a wave in relation to an observer who is moving relative to the source of the wave. The ''Doppler effect'' is named after the physicist Christian Doppler, who described ...

for sound waves in 1845 by using a group of musicians playing a calibrated note on a train in the Utrecht-Amsterdam line. Buys Ballot is best known for his accomplishments in the field of

meteorology Meteorology is the scientific study of the Earth's atmosphere and short-term atmospheric phenomena (i.e. weather), with a focus on weather forecasting. It has applications in the military, aviation, energy production, transport, agricultur ...

, specifically the explanation of the direction of air flow in large weather systems. Furthermore, he founded the Royal Dutch Meteorological Institute in 1854 and he remained its chief director until his death. He was one of the first to see the need for international cooperation, and in 1873 he organized and became the first chairman of the International Meteorological Organization, a precursor of the

(WMO). Buys Ballot's law states that if a person in the

Northern Hemisphere The Northern Hemisphere is the half of Earth that is north of the equator. For other planets in the Solar System, north is defined by humans as being in the same celestial sphere, celestial hemisphere relative to the invariable plane of the Solar ...

stands with his back to the wind, the atmospheric pressure is low to the left, high to the right. His main research effort in meteorology went into examining long-time series for regularities; he was more concerned with establishing the regularities than in explaining them. He made no contributions to the theory of meteorology, despite his training in physics. Buys Ballot devised a tabular method for investigating periodicity in

time series In mathematics, a time series is a series of data points indexed (or listed or graphed) in time order. Most commonly, a time series is a sequence taken at successive equally spaced points in time. Thus it is a sequence of discrete-time data. ...

. In 1847, he used the table now named after him to determine the period of the sun's rotation from daily observations of temperature in the Netherlands from 1729 to 1846. Buys Ballot became member of the

Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences The Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (, KNAW) is an organization dedicated to the advancement of science and literature in the Netherlands. The academy is housed in the Trippenhuis in Amsterdam. In addition to various advisory a ...

in 1855 and an honorary member of the

Finnish Society of Sciences and Letters The Finnish Society of Sciences and Letters (, , ) is a Finnish learned society for natural sciences, social sciences and humanities. It is a bilingual (Swedish and Finnish) science academy and the oldest of the four science academies in Finland. ...

in 1887.Fredr. Elfving: Finska Vetenskaps-Societeten 1938–1938, Societas Scientiarum Fennica, Helsingfors 1938, page 297. Among his students was the prominent Dutch

astronomer An astronomer is a scientist in the field of astronomy who focuses on a specific question or field outside the scope of Earth. Astronomers observe astronomical objects, such as stars, planets, natural satellite, moons, comets and galaxy, galax ...

Jacobus Kapteyn Jacobus Cornelius Kapteyn (19 January 1851 – 18 June 1922) was a Dutch astronomy, astronomer. He carried out extensive studies of the Milky Way. He found that the apparent movement of stars was not randomly distributed but had two preferentia ...

Bibliography

*Harold L. Burstyn "Buys Ballot, Christoph Hendrik Diederik" ''Dictionary of Scientific Biography'' volume 1, p. 628, New York: Scribners 1973. *E. van Everdingen ''C. H. D. Buys Ballot 1817-1890'' The Hague 1953. *O. B. Sheynin On the History of the Statistical Method in Meteorology, ''Archive for the History of the Exact Sciences'', 31, (1984-5) 53-95. *J. L. Klein ''Statistical Visions in Time'', Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1997. * *

References

External links

M. Buys-Ballot, "Note sur le rapport de l'intensite et de la direction du vent avec les ecarts simultanes du barometre", ''Comptes Rendus'', Vol. 45 (1857), pp. 765–768
{{DEFAULTSORT:Buys Ballot, C.H.D. 19th-century Dutch chemists Dutch meteorologists 19th-century Dutch physicists 1817 births 1890 deaths Members of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences Corresponding members of the Saint Petersburg Academy of Sciences Utrecht University alumni Academic staff of Utrecht University People from Goes Scientists from Utrecht (city)