Robert E. Wilson is an astrophysicist,

academic An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of tertiary education. The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy, founded approximately 386 BC at Akademia, a sanctuary of Athena, the go ...

, and

author In legal discourse, an author is the creator of an original work that has been published, whether that work exists in written, graphic, visual, or recorded form. The act of creating such a work is referred to as authorship. Therefore, a sculpt ...

. He is a professor emeritus at the University of Florida (UF). Wilson's research covers various aspects of astrophysics including stellar models,

stellar structure Stellar structure models describe the internal structure of a star in detail and make predictions about the luminosity, the color and the future evolution of the star. Different classes and ages of stars have different internal structures, refle ...

& evolution, and close

binary star A binary star or binary star system is a system of two stars that are gravitationally bound to and in orbit around each other. Binary stars in the night sky that are seen as a single object to the naked eye are often resolved as separate stars us ...

s. He has co-edited and co-authored books on astrophysical topics, and his research has received awards such as the Humboldt Prize from Germany's

Alexander von Humboldt Foundation The Alexander von Humboldt Foundation () is a foundation that promotes international academic cooperation between scientists and scholars from Germany and abroad. Established by the government of the Federal Republic of Germany, it is funded by t ...

. Wilson is a member of the

American Astronomical Society The American Astronomical Society (AAS, sometimes spoken as "double-A-S") is an American society of professional astronomers and other interested individuals, headquartered in Washington, DC. The primary objective of the AAS is to promote the adv ...

, 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 ...

, the

Astronomical Society of the Pacific The Astronomical Society of the Pacific (ASP) is an American scientific and educational organization, founded in San Francisco on February 7, 1889, immediately following the solar eclipse of January 1, 1889. Its name derives from its origins on ...

, the Norristown (PA) Eisenhower High School Hall of Fame, and the

International Astronomical Union The International Astronomical Union (IAU; , UAI) is an international non-governmental organization (INGO) with the objective of advancing astronomy in all aspects, including promoting astronomical research, outreach, education, and developmen ...

Education

Wilson completed his PhD from the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (Penn or UPenn) is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. One of nine colonial colleges, it was chartered in 1755 through the efforts of f ...

in 1963.

Career

Wilson started his career as an assistant professor at

Georgetown University Georgetown University is a private university, private Jesuit research university in Washington, D.C., United States. Founded by Bishop John Carroll (archbishop of Baltimore), John Carroll in 1789, it is the oldest Catholic higher education, Ca ...

(1963–66). He was associate professor at the

University of South Florida The University of South Florida (USF) is a Public university, public research university with its main campus located in Tampa, Florida, Tampa, Florida, United States, and other campuses in St. Petersburg, Florida, St. Petersburg and Sarasota, ...

(1966–69), and then Professor at the same institution (1969 to 1979). At the University of Florida (UF) he served as Professor from 1979 to 2007. He then was appointed professor emeritus at UF and continues to publish in the field of astronomy. Wilson has been a National Research Council Associate at the

Goddard Institute for Space Studies The Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) is a laboratory in the Earth Sciences Division of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center affiliated with the Columbia University Earth Institute. The institute is located at Columbia University in Ne ...

in New York City (1972–74); guest at the

Max Planck Institute The Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science (; abbreviated MPG) is a formally independent non-governmental and non-profit association of German research institutes. Founded in 1911 as the Kaiser Wilhelm Society, it was renamed to the M ...

for Astrophysics in Garching, Germany (1979–80); Visiting Scientist at the

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Its academic roots were established in 1881 as a normal school then known as the southern branch of the C ...

Department of Astronomy (1986-87); and Visiting Scientist at the

Indiana University Indiana University (IU) is a state university system, system of Public university, public universities in the U.S. state of Indiana. The system has two core campuses, five regional campuses, and two regional centers under the administration o ...

Astronomy Department (2013–15).

Research

Wilson's astrophysics research spans stellar structural and evolutionary models and close binary stars, with conceptual innovations. He co-edited the book ''Astrophysical Disks'' with S.F Dermott and J.H Hunter (1992), featuring contributions from experts and covering topics in non-linear astrophysics. He also co-edited ''Waves in Astrophysics'' with J.H. Hunter (1995), which explored applications of chaos theory and non-linear dynamics within scenarios such as

circumstellar disks A Circumstellar disc (or circumstellar disk) is a torus, pancake or ring-shaped accretion disk of matter composed of gas, dust, planetesimals, asteroids, or collision fragments in orbit around a star. Around the youngest stars, they are the rese ...

, collimated outflows, the

interstellar medium The interstellar medium (ISM) is the matter and radiation that exists in the outer space, space between the star systems in a galaxy. This matter includes gas in ionic, atomic, and molecular form, as well as cosmic dust, dust and cosmic rays. It f ...

galaxies A galaxy is a system of stars, stellar remnants, interstellar gas, dust, and dark matter bound together by gravity. The word is derived from the Greek ' (), literally 'milky', a reference to the Milky Way galaxy that contains the Solar Sys ...

, and pulsating stars. Earlier, he published the book ''Binary Stars: A Pictorial Atlas'' with D. Terrell and J. Mukherjee, which showcased

systems through computer generated illustrations of their dimensions, orbits, and figures. T.D. Oswalt (Florida Institute of Technology) remarked "Both amateurs and professionals will enjoy looking up, via the convenient index, those binaries that they have actually observed and read about elsewhere – I certainly have found myself looking up all my favorites."

Binary stars

Wilson's earlier work led the move from geometric binary system models to physical models that directly treat tides, gravity brightening, star-star heating & re-radiation, and other physical phenomena. His computational revision of reflection has enhanced the synthesis of the effect, improving accuracy, generality, and efficiency, simplifying the implementation of multiple reflections by setting a control integer to 1 for one "bounce," 2 for two bounces, and so forth. Advances of those times, the late 1960s to early 1990s, have been explained in Wilson's invited reviews such as his article on Binary Stars in the ''Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific''. His ideas have completed the set of four morphological types of binariesdetached, semi-detached, overcontact, and double contact, which originated with Zdenek Kopal's definitions of the first two types in his book ''Close Binary Systems''. Additionally, his analytic modeling of self-gravitating semi-transparent circumstellar disks has now been augmented to include star and interior disk irradiation.

Awards and honors

*1979 – Max Planck-Humboldt Research Award, Alexander von Humboldt Foundation/Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics, Germany

Bibliography

Selected books

*''Binary Stars: A Pictorial Atlas'' (1992) *''Astrophysical Disks (Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences)'' (1992) *''Waves in Astrophysics'' (1995)

Selected articles

* Wilson, R. E., & Devinney, E. J. (1971). Realization of accurate close-binary light curves: application to MR Cygni. Astrophysical Journal, 166, 605. *Wilson, R. E., & Biermann, P. (1976). TX Cancri-Which component is hotter. Astronomy and Astrophysics, 48(3), 349–357. *Wilson, R. E. (1979). Eccentric orbit generalization and simultaneous solution of binary star light and velocity curves. Astrophysical Journal, Part 1, 234, 1054–1066. *Wilson, R. E. (1990). Accuracy and efficiency in the binary star reflection effect. Astrophysical Journal, Part 1 , 356, 613–622. *Wilson, R. E. (1994). Binary star light-curve models. Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, 106, 921. *Wilson, R. E. (2018). Self-gravitating Semi-transparent Circumstellar Disks: An Analytic Model. The Astrophysical Journal, 869(1), 19.

References

External links

Fifty Years of Eclipsing Binary Analysis with the Wilson–Devinney Model
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wilson, Robert E. American astrophysicists American academics American science writers University of Pennsylvania alumni University of Florida faculty 1937 births Living people