- Robert Simpson Woodward
Robert Simpson Woodward (
July 21 ,1849 –June 29 ,1924 ) was an Americanphysicist andmathematician , born at Rochester,Michigan . He graduated C.E. at theUniversity of Michigan in 1872 and was appointed assistantengineer on the United States Lake Survey. In 1882 he became assistantastronomer for the United States Transit of Venus Commission. In 1884 he became astronomer to the United States Geological Survey, serving until 1890, when he became assistant in the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey. In 1893 he was called to Columbia asprofessor ofmechanics and subsequently became professor ofmathematical physics as well. He was dean of the faculty ofpure science at Columbia from 1895 to 1905, when he became president of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, whose reputation and usefulness as a means of furthering scientific research was widely extended under his direction. He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1896. In 1898-1900 he was president of theAmerican Mathematical Society , and in 1900 president of theAmerican Association for the Advancement of Science . In 1915 he was appointed to the Naval Consulting Board. He died in 1924 inWashington, D.C. Professor Woodward carried on researches and published papers in many departments of
astronomy ,geodesy , andmechanics . In the course of his work with the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey he devised and constructed the "iced bar and long tape base apparatus," which enables a base line to be measured with greater accuracy and with less expense than by methods previously employed. His work on the composition and structure of the earth and the variation of latitude found expression in a number of valuable papers. He published:
* " [http://www.archive.org/details/smithsoniangeogr00smituoft Geographical Tables] " (1897; third edition, 1906)
* " [http://www.archive.org/details/probabtheroerror00woodrich Probability and Theory of Errors] " (1906)
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