Born Measham near Ashby-de-la Zouch, Leicestershire, England, 8 January 1868
Died at sea near Cape Town, South Africa, 25 May 1939
Frank Dyson, a highly successful director of the Royal Observatory at Greenwich, contributed significantly to the study of proper motions of stars, and inaugurated the transmission of time via radio, but he is best known for helping to organize the 1919 solar eclipse expedition which provided the first detection of gravitational deflection of starlight.
The oldest of seven children of a Baptist minister, Dyson won a national mathematics contest at 13. This led eventually to scholarships to the University of Cambridge, where he was an honors student in mathematics and astronomy. He continued at Cambridge University as a fellow, achieving some renown for calculating the gravitational potential of an anchor ring. Dyson was appointed chief assistant to Astronomer Royal William Christie at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, in 1894.
Although he knew nothing of...
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Selected References
Dyson, Frank Watson, Arthur Stanley Eddington, and Charles Davidson (1920). “A Determination of the Deflection of Light by the Sun’s Gravitational Field, from Observations Made at the Total Eclipse of May 29, 1919.” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of LondonA 220: 291–333.
Earman, John and Clark Glymour (1980). “Relativity and Eclipses: The British Eclipse Expeditions of 1919 and Their Predecessors.” Historical Studies in the Physical Sciences11: 49–85.
Eddington, Arthur Stanley (1940). “Sir Frank Watson Dyson.” Obituary Notices of the Royal Society3: 159–172.
Jackson, J. (1940). “Frank Watson Dyson.” Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society100: 238–246.
Jeans, James H. (1925). “Address on Presenting the Gold Medal of the Society to Sir Frank Watson Dyson, Astronomer Royal, for His Contributions to Astronomy in General, and in Particular, for His Work on the Proper Motions of the Stars.” Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society85: 672–677.
Klüber, H. von (1960). “The Determination of Einstein’s Light-Deflection in the Gravitational Field of the Sun.” Vistas in Astronomy3: 47–77.
Stanley, Matthew (2003). “An Expedition to Heal the Wounds of War’: The 1919 Eclipse and Eddington as Quaker Adventurer.” Isis94: 57–89.
Tenn, Joseph S. (1993). “Frank W. Dyson: The Seventeenth Bruce Medalist.” Mercury22, no. 2: 49–50, 63. (The original upon which this article is based.)
Wilson, Margaret (1951). Ninth Astronomer Royal; the Life of Frank Watson Dyson. Cambridge: Published for the Dyson family by W. Heffer.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2014 Springer Science+Business Media New York
About this entry
Cite this entry
Tenn, J.S. (2014). Dyson, Frank Watson. In: Hockey, T., et al. Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-9917-7_394
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-9917-7_394
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY
Print ISBN: 978-1-4419-9916-0
Online ISBN: 978-1-4419-9917-7
eBook Packages: Physics and AstronomyReference Module Physical and Materials ScienceReference Module Chemistry, Materials and Physics