Dyson, Frank Watson (1868–1939)
The ninth Astronomer Royal (1910–1933);
the son of a minister, he studied mathematics and astronomy at Trinity College,
Cambridge, and then spent his entire career, except for five years in Edinburgh,
at the Royal Greenwich Observatory.
There, he directed measurements of terrestrial magnetism, latitude, and
time, and he initiated the radio broadcast of time. He determined proper
motions of northern stars and completed his portion of the international
Carte du Ciel project of photographing
the entire sky. Dyson is best known for directing, with Arthur Eddington,
the 1919 eclipse expedition, which confirmed the bending of starlight by
the Sun's gravity, as predicted by Einstein's general
theory of relativity.
Adapted in part from
the biographical
entry at The Bruce Medalists website
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