Simon Mitton (born 18 December 1946) is a British astronomer and writer. He is based at

St Edmund's College, Cambridge St Edmund's College is a Colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge in England. Founded in 1896, it is the second-oldest of the three Cambridge colleges oriented to mature students, which accept ...

. He has written numerous astronomical works. The most well known of these is his biography of fellow Cambridge astronomer

Fred Hoyle Sir Fred Hoyle (24 June 1915 – 20 August 2001) was an English astronomer who formulated the theory of stellar nucleosynthesis and was one of the authors of the influential B2FH paper, B2FH paper. He also held controversial stances on oth ...

Career

Mitton was elected to Council 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 ...

2012–2016, and chairman of the RAS library committee. He is a College Fellow of the Department of the History and Philosophy of Science, Cambridge. He is a founder director of Total Astronomy Limited, a company based in Cambridge that provides media services for the astronomy and space industries. Earlier in his career, while employed by the Cambridge University Press, he was the editor in question when Stephen Hawking famously put the success of his bestseller ''A Brief History of Time'' down to advice from his editor that for every equation in the book the readership would be halved. As a result, the book included only a single equation, E = mc2.Review of 'The Quantum Universe: Everything that can happen does happen.' by Brian Cox and Jeff Forshaw. annah Devlin, Science Correspondent, ''The Times'', October 31, 2011/ref> Jointly with his wife Jacqueline Mitton, he occasionally gives astronomy lectures on cruise ships.

Education

Mitton studied physics and astrophysics. His undergraduate studies were at the

Clarendon Laboratory The Clarendon Laboratory, located on Parks Road within the Science Area in Oxford, England (not to be confused with the Clarendon Building, also in Oxford), is part of the Department of Physics at Oxford University. It houses the atomic and la ...

and

Trinity College, Oxford Trinity College (full name: The College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity in the University of Oxford, of the foundation of Sir Thomas Pope (Knight)) is a Colleges of the University of Oxford, constituent college of the University of Oxford in E ...

. For his doctoral research in high-energy astrophysics, he studied at the

Cavendish Laboratory The Cavendish Laboratory is the Department of Physics at the University of Cambridge, and is part of the School of Physical Sciences. The laboratory was opened in 1874 on the New Museums Site as a laboratory for experimental physics and is named ...

, Cambridge, under Nobel Laureate Sir Martin Ryle FRS. His postdoctoral career started under Sir

FRS at the Institute of Astronomy, Cambridge.

Research

Recently his principal research project has been in the history of astronomy, now his academic field. He has completed a large biography of the British astronomer Sir Fred Hoyle (1915–2001), published in April 2005, and reissued in 2011.

Honours

Awards * Fellow,

(1973) * Fifth Champness Lecturer, Worshipful Company of Spectacle Makers (1975) * 35th Barringer Lecturer,

University of Arkansas The University of Arkansas (U of A, UArk, or UA) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Fayetteville, Arkansas, United States. It is the Flagship campus, flagship campus of the University of Arkan ...

(March 2009) Named after him *

Asteroid An asteroid is a minor planet—an object larger than a meteoroid that is neither a planet nor an identified comet—that orbits within the Solar System#Inner Solar System, inner Solar System or is co-orbital with Jupiter (Trojan asteroids). As ...

4027 Mitton (Awarded jointly with Jacqueline Mitton)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mitton, Simon 20th-century British astronomers British science writers Alumni of Churchill College, Cambridge Alumni of St Edmund's College, Cambridge Alumni of Trinity College, Oxford 1946 births Living people Worshipful Company of Spectacle Makers