William Harkness, a arithmetic professor, inventor, hydrographer, medical physician, astronomer, and meteorologist, was born in Scotland in 1837. Although displaying curiosity in meteorology at a younger age, Harkness turned to the medical discipline and obtained his diploma from New York Homeopathic Medical Faculty in 1862. He served as a volunteer surgeon with the Union forces within the Civil Battle and through the identical yr was appointed an aide on the employees of the U.S. Naval Observatory.
Following the Civil Battle, Harkness was directed in direction of a rising situation: discrepancies of magnetic compasses below the affect of ironclad ships. Harkness experimented by mounting 4 compasses of various design to an ironclad ship, touring to numerous ports around the globe, and directing the ship to numerous cardinal instructions whereas recording magnetic declination, inclination, and horizontal power — concurrently evaluating readings with true bearing. By way of hundreds of observations, Harkness produced essentially the most elaborate research on habits of compasses inside armored ships ever recorded on the time.
Throughout his years on the U.S. Naval Observatory, Harkness developed a sequence of technological enhancements in spectroscope and photographic gear, which attributed to unimaginable element in his observations of whole photo voltaic eclipses in 1869 and 1870. Following his observations, Harkness was appointed one of many authentic members of the Transit of Venus Fee, necessary for figuring out the size of the photo voltaic system.
Transit of Venus, the passage of the planet throughout the solar’s discs, happens in pairs separated by eight years and greater than a century in between pairs. The astronomer Edmond Halley introduced proof in 1716 that this phenomenon might present information on the solar’s parallax, its exact distance from earth, in addition to different dimensions of the photo voltaic system. Along with his invention of the spherometer caliper, essentially the most correct instrument ever devised for figuring out figures of pivots of astronomical devices, Harkness offered extraordinarily correct outcomes.
Throughout his work in astronomy, Harkness is greatest remembered for his analysis on photo voltaic parallax and its associated constants. He carried out a whole inquiry into all earlier observations of photo voltaic parallaxes and assigned every a exact worth for diploma of accuracy, of which the American Nautical Almanac differs by solely a small fraction of arc. Amongst his achievements on the observatory, none ought to overlook his concept of focal curve defining the colour corrections of achromatic telescopes, which is universally accepted and presently in follow.
Following his retirement, the U.S. Navy bestowed upon Harkness the honorary rank of Rear Admiral in recognition of his work and 37 loyal years of service, and two Navy vessels have since been named in his honor.
The U.S. Naval Meteorology and Oceanography Command directs and oversees greater than 2,500 globally-distributed army and civilian personnel who gather, course of and exploit environmental data to help Fleet and Joint Commanders in all warfare areas to make higher selections, primarily based on assured environmental data, sooner than the adversary.
