Historical Meme: Seven Things about Richard Carrington

Tommaso Dorigo has tagged us with one of those blog memes - in this case, a variant of the Historical Meme. The idea is to

• link to the person who tagged you,
• list seven random or weird things about your favourite historical figure,
• tag seven more people at the end of your blog and link to theirs,
• let the tagged people know by leaving a note on their site.

In backreaction's editorial office, history-related stuff ends up on my desk, so I'll try my best to keep the meme alive. Actually, I do not have a favourite historical figure - there are just way too many -, so I'll specify seven small facts about an interesting historical figure I've just been reading about, Richard Carrington (the Wikipedia entry is still quite brief...)

• Richard Carrington was born in 1826 in Chelsea, England. He studied at Cambridge to become a cleric, but discovered his fascination for astronomy


• His father, a wealthy brewer, agreed that he constructed his own, private observatory at Redhill, Surrey. Working there, Carrington established an accurate Catalogue of Stars of the Northern Sky, which won him the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1859.
  
  
  A series of large sunspots in March 2001 (Credit: SOHO)


• During daytime, he didn't rest, but embarked on a long-term systematic study of sunspots. Analysing his data, he discovered the differential rotation of the Sun, implying that the Sun could not be a solid, rigid body, as current wisdom stated at that time.
  
  
  A Solar Filament Lifts Off (Credit: TRACE, NASA, via APOD, July 25, 2004)


• While making his daily observations of sunspots, he became, on September 1, 1859, the lucky eyewitness of one of the largest solar flares in the last few hundred years. A solar flare is a huge explosion in the Sun's atmosphere, when turbulent magnetic fields slingshot large amounts of ionised gas into interstellar space. When this plasma hits the Earth's magnetic field, a few hours after the flare, the result is a "Geomagnetic Storm", which can affect power grids, electronic equipment - and causes splendid auroras. In the wake of Carrington's flare, spectacular auroras could be observed up to about ±30° latitude.
  
  
  The Aurora Borealis above Bear Lake, Alaska (Credit: Wikipedia)


• Following the death of his father, he took care of the brewery. He tried to keep on his solar observation program, and his activities as a secretary for the Royal Astronomical Society. But to his growing frustration, he had to note that he could not manage both the brewery and his strict observational schedule at the same time. He even sold his observatory.


• In the hope to be able to follow his fascination for astronomy full-time again, he tried to get the positions of the director of the university observatories of Cambridge and Oxford when they had job openings, but without success. Finally, he brought himself to sell the brewery, established a new private observatory and tried to tie in with his earlier work, but with not much success.


• His wife was stabbed by a former lover, and had to take strong medication in the aftermath. She died from an overdose of sedatives. Carrington died ten days later, on November 27, 1875, officially of a brain haemorrhage.

I've learned all these things from a very readable book with a somewhat silly title, The Sun Kings: The Unexpected Tragedy of Richard Carrington and the Tale of How Modern Astronomy Began, by Stuart Clark. It's not only about Carrington, but about how during the 19th century, the study of the Earth's magnetic field, the observation of sunspots, and the developments of spectroscopy and atomic theory started astrophysics and our understanding of the Sun and the stars - here is a review.

OK - Sabine was quite reluctant to propagate the meme, because it may just annoy the affected bloggers who could feel compelled to waste their time contributing something. So, I'll introduce a mutation and transmit it to five blogs only instead of seven, and allow for a crossing of the language barrier. Here are the tags: What is Einstein's Moon?, Text&Blog, Highly Allochthonous, The Greenbelt, and Theorema Egregium.

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Update (March 14):
Here is a brief genealogy of the meme, as reconstructed by the links:

• A Quantum Diaries Survivor (Tommaso Dorigo) on Wladimiro Dorigo (March 3, 2008)
• Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub (Ed Darrell) on James Madison (March 1, 2008)
• Pharyngula (PZ Myers) on Karl Ernst Ritter von Baer, Edler von Huthorn (February 25, 2008)
• Evolving Thoughts (John Wilkins) on Friedrich II von Hohenstaufen (February 25, 2008)
• Opinions of a Reformed Dropout on Isaac Newton (February 25, 2008)
• Per Omnia Saecula (Jennifer Lynn Jordan) on Prester John (January 4, 2008)
• Heavenfield (Michelle of Heavenfield) on Oswald of Northumbria (December 30, 2007)
• A Corner of Tenth-Century Europe (Jonathan Jarrett) on Count Borrell II (December 29, 2007)
• Magistra et Mater on Charlemagne/Karl der Große (December 19, 2007)

There is an essential mutation of the meme at Magistra et Mater, changing "word 2" from "Share seve random and/or weird things about yourself" to "about a historical figure of your choice". So, I consider that post the starting point of this meme. The minor change from "of your choice" to "favourite" happened already at Heavenfield, who also gives a partial account of the early path of the meme.

I have tagged The Greenbelt, who had in fact already been tagged before - and, as it happens, together with Chris at Highly Allochthonous - along this line:

• The Greenbelt on Ahhotep I (February 25, 2008)
• The Questionable Authority (Mike Dunford) on Nicolas Steno (February 25, 2008)
• Evolving Thoughts (John Wilkins) on Friedrich II von Hohenstaufen (February 25, 2008)

Nevertheless, The Greenbelt had a short dead time (my tribute to Talk like a Physicist Day) and agreed to participate once more. So, until I will have figured out how trackbacks work, here are links to the meme's next generation so far:

• What is Einstein's Moon? (Phil Warnell) on Stephen Gray
• The Greenbelt on Anton Pavlovich Chekhov
• Theorema Egregium (Christine Dantas) on César Lattes, co-discoverer of the pion

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