James Glaisher

:"See also James Whitbread Lee Glaisher, the mathematician"

Infobox Scientist
name = James Glaisher
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caption = James Glaisher
birth_date = 7 April 1809
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death_date = 7 February 1903
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nationality = English
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field = meteorology
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James Glaisher, FRS, was an English meteorologist and aeronaut (7 April 1809 - 7 February 1903).

Educated at St Paul's School in London, and Trinity College, Cambridge, Glaisher was an assistant at the Royal Greenwich Observatories at Cambridge and Greenwich, and Superintendent of the Department of Meteorology and Magnetism at Greenwich for thirty-four years.

In 1845, Glaisher published his dew point tables, for the measurement of humidity.

Glaisher was a founder member of the Meteorological Society (1850), and the Aeronautical Society of Great Britain (1866).

He is most famous, however, as a pioneering balloonist. Between 1862 and 1866, usually with Henry Tracey Coxwell as his co-pilot, Glaisher made numerous ascents in order to measure the temperature and humidity of the atmosphere at its highest levels. One one ascent in 1862, he broke the world record for altitude, but passed out before a reading could be taken. Estimates suggest that he rose to approximately 7 miles above sea-level.

External links

* [http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/G/GL/GLAISHER_JAMES.htm Article in 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica]
* [http://www.royalsoc.ac.uk/DServe/dserve.exe?dsqIni=Dserve.ini&dsqApp=Archive&dsqCmd=Show.tcl&dsqSearch=RefNo='EC/1849/07'&dsqDb=Catalog Royal Society citation]
* [http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?_r=1&res=9D0CE1DF143EE033A25754C2A9609C946897D6CF&oref=slogin Newspaper cutting from New York Times, 1909.]
* [http://johnwoodfield.co.uk/balloon.htm Details of 1862 balloon flight.]