From solar radiation to informatic gyration – the travels of an astronomically talented polymath

Abstract

I have known Jack Meadows for many years; our careers have overlapped and we have common interests. Jack has been interested in the history and philosophy of science, public understanding of science, and, in astronomy, solar rotation and meteorites, having published on both from the 1960s. He has also been interested in the historical dimensions of astronomy and personalities within it, as well as the links between science and education. The Royal Astronomical Society’s motto, which translates as “whatever shines is to be noticed”, fits in with Jack’s view of life and his great breadth of knowledge. Also on the badge of the R.A.S. is a picture of Herschel’s telescope – this is in fact one he bought with money he received after making an important discovery. This sort of thing may still be relevant to research today. I am going to discuss a man who was a polymath like Jack. The first professor of astronomy at Durham, Temple Chevalier, was also the professor of maths, librarian, registrar, deputy vice chancellor, reader in Hebrew and also a vicar. He was interested in the sun and solar rotation, and built an observatory to look at the sun. Incidentally, our normal view of the sun, as a plain disc, or with a few sunspots, is completely different to what is seen if a picture of the soft X-rays given off is taken – there are areas of very different brightness, and great plumes erupting from it. Would our attitude to the permanence of life have been different if we could see in X-rays and could see the sun erupting? In many sciences a change of viewpoint is needed – like the enlightenment when something familiar is seen with a different wavelength. A research associate of Chevalier in the 1840s found that sunspots moved around the sun at different speeds. This shows that the sun is not solid but gaseous, having a surface that con rotate at different speeds depending on the altitude. Although sunspots had been known for thousands of years, this had never been observed before. We don’t know why not, but it shows that discoveries are waiting to be made all the time. There is an application for informatics in this. There are many established databases with huge amounts of information in them. Informatics should devise techniques to discover new facts from the data, using computers to discover new patterns or themes in the old facts. I see censorship as important in information work. There needs to be responsibility in the kind of information which is available in the databases on the internet – for example, instructions for constructing weapons are currently easy to find. Attitudes to freedom of information do not seem to be responsible enough. Attention should be paid to this, and I think academics should be involved in designing sensible schemes for censorship.