Frank Watson Dyson

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Sir Frank Watson Dyson

Born	8 January 1868 (1868-01-08) Measham, nr Ashby-de-la-Zouch, Leicestershire, England
Died	25 May 1939 (1939-05-26) (aged 71) At sea
Known for	Astronomer Royal
Signature

Sir Frank Watson Dyson, KBE, FRS (8 January 1868 – 25 May 1939) was an English astronomer and Astronomer Royal who is remembered today largely for introducing time signals ("pips") from Greenwich, England, and for the role he played in testing Einstein's theory of general relativity.

1 Biography
2 Honors and memorials
3 Selected writings
4 References
5 External links

Biography

Dyson was born in Measham, near Ashby-de-la-Zouch, England. He attended Heath Grammar School, Halifax, and subsequently won scholarships to Bradford Grammar School and Trinity College, Cambridge University, where he studied mathematics and astronomy, being placed Second Wrangler in 1889.^[1] He was Astronomer Royal for Scotland from 1905 to 1910, and Astronomer Royal (and director of the Royal Greenwich Observatory) from 1910 to 1933. In 1928, he introduced a new free-pendulum clock in the Observatory. This wireless transmission meant that Greenwich Mean Time was more accurate. He also invented the "six pips", in 1924.

Dyson was noted for his study of solar eclipses and was an authority on the spectrum of the corona and on the chromosphere. He is credited with organizing expeditions to observe the 1919 solar eclipse at Brazil and Principe, observations from which confirmed Einstein's theory of the effect of gravity on light.

Dyson died while traveling from Australia to England in 1939, and was buried at sea

Honors and memorials

Fellow of the Royal Society - 1901
President, Royal Astronomical Society - 1911–1913
Knighted - 1915
President, British Astronomical Association, 1916–1918
Royal Medal of the Royal Society - 1921
Bruce Medal - 1922
Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society - 1925
KBE - 1926
Between 1894–1906, Dyson lived at 6 Vanbrugh Hill, Blackheath, London SE3, in a house now marked by a blue plaque.
The crater Dyson on the Moon is named after him, as is the asteroid 1241 Dysona.

Eclipse photograph from 1919 expedition^[2]

Frank Dyson and Freeman Dyson are not related. However, the latter does credit Sir Frank with sparking his interest in astronomy; because they shared the same last name, Sir Frank's achievements were discussed by Freeman Dyson's family when he was a young boy. Inspired, Dyson's first attempt at writing was a 1931 piece of juvenilia entitled "Sir Phillip Robert's Erolunar Collision" — Sir Philip being a thinly disguised version of Sir Frank.