Francis Graham-Smith | |
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 Francis Graham-Smith in 2009 | |
| Born | 25 April 1923  |
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| Fields | Radio astronomy |
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| Position held | Astronomer Royal (1982–1990) |
Sir Francis Graham-Smith (born 25 April 1923) is a British astronomer. He was the thirteenth Astronomer Royal from 1982 to 1990 and was knighted in 1986. [1]
He was educated at Rossall School, [2] Lancashire, England, and attended Downing College, Cambridge from 1941. [3]
In the late 1940s he worked at the University of Cambridge on the Long Michelson Interferometer.
In 1964 he was appointed Professor of Radio Astronomy the University of Manchester and in 1981 director of the Nuffield Radio Astronomy Laboratories, part of the University of Manchester at Jodrell Bank. He was also Director of the Royal Greenwich Observatory from 1975 to 1981.
He appeared in Episode 13 of Series 4 of Treasure Hunt when the show visited Jodrell Bank, giving presenter Anneka Rice a piggy back to allow her to reach a clue. [4]
Graham-Smith is an avid bee-keeper and kept up this hobby well into his 90s, looking after the hives at Jodrell Bank. He also inspired the creation of the St Andrews Amateur Beekeeping Society. [5]
He lived with his wife Elizabeth in the Old School House in Henbury, Cheshire, from 1981 until her death in 2021. They had met when they were both working with Martin Ryle in 1945-6 in Cambridge in the early days of radio astronomy. [6]
He celebrated his 100th birthday on 25 April 2023. [7]
He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1970 [1] and was awarded their Royal Medal in 1987.
He was president of the Royal Astronomical Society from 1975 to 1977.
He was the thirteenth Astronomer Royal from 1982 to 1990.
He won the Richard Glazebrook Medal and Prize in 1991.
Sir Francis Graham-Smith is a Distinguished Supporter of Humanists UK [8] is the President of Macclesfield Astronomical Society and is a patron of Mansfield and Sutton Astronomical Society.
In 1965 he was invited to co-deliver the Royal Institution Christmas Lecture on Exploration of the Universe.
John Flamsteed was an English astronomer and the first Astronomer Royal. His main achievements were the preparation of a 3,000-star catalogue, Catalogus Britannicus, and a star atlas called Atlas Coelestis, both published posthumously. He also made the first recorded observations of Uranus, although he mistakenly catalogued it as a star, and he laid the foundation stone for the Royal Greenwich Observatory.
The Royal Observatory, Greenwich is an observatory situated on a hill in Greenwich Park in south east London, overlooking the River Thames to the north. It played a major role in the history of astronomy and navigation, and because the Prime Meridian passed through it, it gave its name to Greenwich Mean Time, the precursor to today's Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). The ROG has the IAU observatory code of 000, the first in the list. ROG, the National Maritime Museum, the Queen's House and the clipper ship Cutty Sark are collectively designated Royal Museums Greenwich.
Jodrell Bank Observatory in Cheshire, England hosts a number of radio telescopes as part of the Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics at the University of Manchester. The observatory was established in 1945 by Bernard Lovell, a radio astronomer at the university, to investigate cosmic rays after his work on radar in the Second World War. It has since played an important role in the research of meteoroids, quasars, pulsars, masers, and gravitational lenses, and was heavily involved with the tracking of space probes at the start of the Space Age.
Sir George Biddell Airy was an English mathematician and astronomer, as well as the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics from 1826 to 1828 and the seventh Astronomer Royal from 1835 to 1881. His many achievements include work on planetary orbits, measuring the mean density of the Earth, a method of solution of two-dimensional problems in solid mechanics and, in his role as Astronomer Royal, establishing Greenwich as the location of the prime meridian.
Sir Frank Watson Dyson, KBE, FRS, FRSE was an English astronomer and the ninth Astronomer Royal who is remembered today largely for introducing time signals ("pips") from Greenwich, England, and for the role he played in proving Einstein's theory of general relativity.
Sir Alfred Charles Bernard Lovell was an English physicist and radio astronomer. He was the first director of Jodrell Bank Observatory, from 1945 to 1980.
Sir Martin Ryle was an English radio astronomer who developed revolutionary radio telescope systems and used them for accurate location and imaging of weak radio sources. In 1946 Ryle and Derek Vonberg were the first people to publish interferometric astronomical measurements at radio wavelengths. With improved equipment, Ryle observed the most distant known galaxies in the universe at that time. He was the first Professor of Radio Astronomy in the University of Cambridge and founding director of the Mullard Radio Astronomy Observatory. He was the twelfth Astronomer Royal from 1972 to 1982. Ryle and Antony Hewish shared the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1974, the first Nobel prize awarded in recognition of astronomical research. In the 1970s, Ryle turned the greater part of his attention from astronomy to social and political issues which he considered to be more urgent.
The Multi-Element Radio Linked Interferometer Network (MERLIN) is an interferometer array of radio telescopes spread across England. The array is run from Jodrell Bank Observatory in Cheshire by the University of Manchester on behalf of UK Research and Innovation.
Sir Harold Spencer Jones KBE FRS FRSE PRAS was an English astronomer. He became renowned as an authority on positional astronomy and served as the tenth Astronomer Royal for 23 years. Although born "Jones", his surname became "Spencer Jones".
The Reverend Robert Main was an English astronomer.
The Cavendish Astrophysics Group is based at the Cavendish Laboratory at the University of Cambridge. The group operates all of the telescopes at the Mullard Radio Astronomy Observatory except for the 32m MERLIN telescope, which is operated by Jodrell Bank.
Rossall School is a public school for 0–18 year olds, between Cleveleys and Fleetwood, Lancashire. Rossall was founded in 1844 by St Vincent Beechey as a sister school to Marlborough College which had been founded the previous year. Its establishment was "to provide, at a moderate cost, for the sons of Clergymen and others, a classical, mathematical and general education of the highest class, and to do all things necessary, incidental, or conducive to the attainment of the above objects." Along with Cheltenham, Lancing and Marlborough, Rossall was part of a flurry of expansion in public school education during the early Victorian period.
Rodney Deane Davies CBE FRS was a Professor of Radio Astronomy at the University of Manchester. He was the President of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1987–1989, and the Director of Jodrell Bank Observatory in 1988–97. He is best known for his research on the Cosmic microwave background and the 21cm line.
The Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Manchester is one of the largest and most active physics departments in the UK, taking around 250 new undergraduates and 50 postgraduates each year, and employing more than 80 members of academic staff and over 100 research fellows and associates. The department is based on two sites: the Schuster Laboratory on Brunswick Street and the Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics in Cheshire, international headquarters of the Square Kilometre Array (SKA).
Marek Janusz Kukula is a British astronomer and an author of works on popular science. After gaining a PhD in radio astronomy from the University of Manchester in 1994, he specialised in studying distant galaxies. As his research reached the limits of telescopes, he moved into the field of public engagement. In 2008 he was appointed Public Astronomer at the Royal Observatory Greenwich.
The director of the Royal Greenwich Observatory was the senior scientist responsible for the administration of the Royal Greenwich Observatory from 1972 until the institution's closure in 1998.
The Jodcast is a bimonthly podcast created by astronomers at Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics (JBCA), University of Manchester in Manchester, England. It debuted in January 2006, aiming to inspire and inform the public about astronomy and related sciences, to excite young people with the latest astronomy research results, to motivate students to pursue careers in science, and to dispel stereotypes of scientists as incomprehensible and unapproachable.
Richard John Davis, OBE, FRAS was a radio astronomer for the Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics at the University of Manchester.
Mary Almond was an English physicist, radio astronomer, palaeomagnetist, mathematician, and computer scientist who completed an early PhD in radio astronomy at Jodrell Bank Observatory in 1952.
Anna Margaret Mahala Scaife is a Professor of Radio Astronomy at the University of Manchester and Head of the Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics Interferometry Centre of Excellence. She is the co-director of Policy@Manchester. She was awarded the 2019 Royal Astronomical Society Jackson-Gwilt Medal in recognition of her contributions to astrophysical instrumentation.
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