Edwin Brant Frost

Infobox_Scientist
name = Edwin Brant Frost II
birth_date = July 16 1886
birth_place = Brattleboro, Vermont
death_date = May 14, 1935
death_place = Chicago, Illinois
nationality = American flagicon|USA
field = astronomy
alma_mater = Dartmouth

Edwin Brant Frost II (July 16 1866 – May 14 1935) was an American astronomer.

Biography

He was born in Brattleboro, Vermont. His father, Carlton Pennington Frost, was dean of Dartmouth Medical School. [cite web | url = http://dms.dartmouth.edu/about/history/history.shtml | title = Two Hundred Years of Medicine at Dartmouth | first = Barbara | last = Blough | coauthors = Dana Cook Grossman | publisher = Dartmouth Medical School | accessdate = 2008-06-25 ]

Frost graduated from Dartmouth in 1886. Citation | first = Otto | last = Struve | author-link = Otto Struve | title = Biographical Memoir of Edwin Brant Frost|date=1937| publisher = National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America| url = ] He continued his education as a post-graduate student in chemistry and in 1887 became an instructor in physics while only 21 years old. In 1890 Frost went abroad to Europe and ended up researching stellar spectroscopy under Hermann Vogel in Potsdam. He returned to Dartmouth in 1892 as an assistant professor of astronomy.

He was fond of the outdoors and enjoyed golf, swimming, and ice skating. He also enjoyed music and literature. In 1896 he married Mary E. Hazard. They had three children, Katharine, Fredrick , and Benjamin.

Frost joined the staff of Yerkes Observatory in 1898 and became its director in 1905 when George Hale resigned. Frost kept the position until his retirement in 1932. He was the editor of the "Astrophysical Journal" from 1902 to 1932, known for his careful attention to details. In 1915 he lost the use of his right eye and in 1921, his left. Despite his blindness he continued working for eleven more years until his retirement in 1932.

He died in 1935 in Chicago from peritonitis. [cite news|title=Edwin B. Frost, famous blind scientist, dies|date=May 15, 1935|publisher=Milwaukee Sentinel|url=http://wisconsinhistory.org/WLHBA/articleView.asp?pg=1&id=2394&hdl=&np=&adv=yes&ln=&fn=&q=&y1=&y2=&ci=Chicago&co=&mhd=&shd=]

Legacy

Frost's research focused on the determination of radial velocity using stellar spectroscopy and spectroscopic binaries.Citation | first = Philip | last = Fox | author-link = Philip Fox (astronomer) | title = Edwin Brant Frost, 1866-1935|date=January 1936| publisher = The Astrophysical Journal| url = adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1936ApJ....83....1F] In 1902, he discovered the strange behavior of Beta Cephei, which later became the prototype for Beta Cephei variable stars.

He played a significant role in bringing Otto Struve to the United States, when the latter was living as an impoverished refugee in Turkey after the Russian Revolution. He later supported the appointment of Struve as his successor as director of Yerkes Observatory.Fact|date=June 2008

References

External links

* [http://astro.uchicago.edu/yerkes/virtualmuseum/Frost.html Biography] Dead link|date=June 2008