Brown, Ernest William

BornHull, England, 29 November 1866

DiedNew Haven, Connecticut, USA, 22 July 1938

Ernest Brown is chiefly remembered for his outstanding work in celestial mechanics, more specifically his meticulous researches into the complex intricacies of lunar theory. He was the only surviving son of wealthy farmers William and Emma Martin Brown; he had two sisters, and a brother who died in infancy.

Educated at East Riding College, Hull, Brown quickly showed an aptitude for mathematics, and in 1884 won a scholarship to Christ’s College, Cambridge. There he studied under George Darwin , with whom he developed a friendship that lasted until the latter’s death in 1912. Indeed it was Darwin who urged him to study George Hill ’s papers on the theory of the Moon.

That was in the summer of 1888. Brown had by then spent a year in postgraduate study at Cambridge. The suggestion set the pattern of his scientific career. For the next 20 years little else occupied his professional mind, and though in the...