Sir Harold Jefferys

Harold Jeffrys was born April 21, 1891 in the village of Fatfield, near the city Sunderland, England, where his father was a schoolmaster and his mother a school teacher at the village school. He attended school in Fatfield and he was awarded a scholarship to study at Rutherford University in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. In 1907 he went to Armstrong College, also in Newcastle graduating in 1910 with distinction in mathematics. He then went to St. John's College, Cambridge earning on of four mathematical scholarships. He became a fellow at St. John's in 1914 and remained there throughout his career.

Jefferys' studies encompass many related fields, including astronomy, pure mathematics, and geophysics. He was particularly interested in seismology and using the records of earthquakes to discern information about the structure of the Earth. By studying the rates at which seismic waves travel through the Earth's crust he was able to determine that it is composed of at least two layers and that the Earth has a molten core. We now know that the Earth's core has molten outer core and a solid inner core. Although his studies advanced our knowledge of the structure of the Earth he remained skeptical of the theory of plate tectonics, the currently accepted theory of movements of the Earth's crust. Much of Jeffrey's work was completed before the advent of artificial satellites and deep ocean drilling used to do geophysical research today.

Jeffery's work in astronomy focused on the planets Neptune and Uranus. In 1923 he proposed that these planets would have surface temperatures of the order of -120 Celsius. This was disputed at the time, but has been proven accurate. He also published a book on probability theory that was influential in that field. Honors won by Jeffry's include election to the Royal Society in 1925, a Gold Medal from the Royal Astronomical Society in 1937 and the Copely Medal from the Royal Society in 1961. He was knighted in 1953.

Jeffrys died on March 18, 1989.


References:

O'Connor, J.J. and Robertson, E. F.; "Harold Jeffrys"; retrieved from history-mcs.st-and.ac.uk.

Mumford, George S.; "Jeffrys, Harold"; in Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers; Springer; 2007

Harold Jeffrys Wikipedia Entry