Who was Edmond Halley?
Edmond Halley (sometimes “Edmund,” 1656-1743) studied at Oxford University, but left before graduating, to observe stars for a year in the southern hemisphere. After his return to England, Halley was active in the new Royal Society of London. There he helped his friend Isaac Newton with his work on gravity and the writing of the Principia, and even paid for the book’s publication. Halley is famous in his own right for analyzing the orbits of comets, which he showed to be elliptical and periodic. Halley’s Comet returned, as he predicted, in 1758, 15 years after his death. (The comet last appeared in 1986, and next will appear in 2061.) Halley’s discovery of stellar motion, though less well known than his comet, was no less an achievement. No longer were the stars believed fixed, either to an outer sphere or in space. At the age of 63, Halley was appointed the Astronomer Royal, a position he held until his death.
Astronomer and Mathematician. Date and Place of Birth: 8th November 1656, Haggerston, Shoreditch, London, England. Family Background: Son of a wealthy London businessman. Education: St. Paul’s School, London. Queens College, Oxford. Chronology/Biography of Edmond Halley: 1676: Left for the British Island of St. Helena to make the first catalogue of the stars in the Southern hemisphere. 1680: Visited Paris observing comets and their orbits which led him to successfully predict the return of one seen in 1583. This became known as Halley’s comet. He was the first also to observe the transit of Mercury. 1683: Worked on magnetic variations and the barometric pressure of the air on earth at various heights above sea level. (Based on the theories of Robert Boyle). 1686: Studied the Trade Winds and also monsoons. 1687: He encouraged Isaac Newton to write “Principia Mathematica” and organised and paid for the publication himself. 1693: With the Publication of his “Breslau Table of Mortality” he
