Marjorie Hall Harrison (September 14, 1918 – August 6, 1986) was an English-born American astronomer. Hall was born in

Nottingham, England Nottingham ( , locally ) is a city and unitary authority area in Nottinghamshire, East Midlands, England. It is located north-west of London, south-east of Sheffield and north-east of Birmingham. Nottingham has links to the legend of Robin H ...

in September 1918. In 1947, she authored one of the first scientific books, a dissertation while at the

Yerkes Observatory Yerkes Observatory ( ) is an astronomical observatory located in Williams Bay, Wisconsin, United States. The observatory was operated by the University of Chicago Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics from its founding in 1897 to 2018. Owner ...

of the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chic ...

, with the word "

model A model is an informative representation of an object, person or system. The term originally denoted the plans of a building in late 16th-century English, and derived via French and Italian ultimately from Latin ''modulus'', a measure. Models c ...

" in the title. This work describes the processes that fuel

star A star is an astronomical object comprising a luminous spheroid of plasma held together by its gravity. The nearest star to Earth is the Sun. Many other stars are visible to the naked eye at night, but their immense distances from Earth make ...

s and is among the first works that endeavored to create detailed mathematical models for complex physical systems. Along with

Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar (; ) (19 October 1910 – 21 August 1995) was an Indian-American theoretical physicist who spent his professional life in the United States. He shared the 1983 Nobel Prize for Physics with William A. Fowler for ".. ...

George Gamow George Gamow (March 4, 1904 – August 19, 1968), born Georgiy Antonovich Gamov ( uk, Георгій Антонович Гамов, russian: Георгий Антонович Гамов), was a Russian-born Soviet and American polymath, theore ...

and G. Keller, Harrison published models in 1944, 1946 and 1947 discussing stars modeled with

hydrogen Hydrogen is the chemical element with the symbol H and atomic number 1. Hydrogen is the lightest element. At standard conditions hydrogen is a gas of diatomic molecules having the formula . It is colorless, odorless, tasteless, non-toxic ...

-depleted and

isothermal In thermodynamics, an isothermal process is a type of thermodynamic process in which the temperature ''T'' of a system remains constant: Δ''T'' = 0. This typically occurs when a system is in contact with an outside thermal reservoir, and ...

core Core or cores may refer to: Science and technology * Core (anatomy), everything except the appendages * Core (manufacturing), used in casting and molding * Core (optical fiber), the signal-carrying portion of an optical fiber * Core, the centra ...

s. As a doctoral student of S. Chandrasekhar at the University of Chicago, she received a degree in astronomy in 1947. A brother, Cecil Hall, was one of Eli Franklin Burton's graduate students who build the first practical

electron microscope An electron microscope is a microscope that uses a beam of accelerated electrons as a source of illumination. As the wavelength of an electron can be up to 100,000 times shorter than that of visible light photons, electron microscopes have a ...

at the University of Toronto in 1938. Hall Harrison died in

Huntsville, Texas Huntsville is a city in and the county seat of Walker County, Texas. The population was 45,941 as of the 2020 census. It is the center of the Huntsville micropolitan area. Huntsville is in the East Texas Piney Woods on Interstate 45 and home t ...

in August 1986 at the age of 67.University of Chicago Alumni: Marjorie H. Harrison, 1947
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References

*Harrison, Marjorie Hall. "Stellar models." Thesis, University of Chicago (1947). *"The Generalized Cowling Model." ''The Astrophysical Journal,'' vol. 100, p. 343 (1944). *"A Stellar Model with a Gravitational Source of Energy." ''The Astrophysical Journal,'' vol. 102, p. 216 (1945). *"Stellar Models with Partially Degenerate Isothermal Cores and Point-Source Envelopes." ''The Astrophysical Journal,'' vol. 103, p. 193 (1946). *"Stellar Models with Isothermal Cores and Point-Source Envelopes." ''The Astrophysical Journal,'' vol. 105, p. 322 (March, 1947). *"On the Chemical Composition of the sun from its Internal Constitution." ''The Astrophysical Journal,'' vol. 1098, p. 310 (1948). *"Note on the Chemical Composition of the Sun." ''The Astrophysical Journal,'' vol. 111, p. 446 (1950). *Donald E. Osterbrock. "Chandra and his students at Yerkes Observatory" '' J. Astrophys. Astr.''(1996) 17, 233–268.

References

1918 births 1986 deaths 20th-century British astronomers People from Nottingham University of Chicago alumni British women astronomers 20th-century British women scientists British emigrants to the United States {{UK-astronomer-stub