William Marshall Smart
William Marshall Smart FRSE FRAS (9 March 1889, Doune, Perthshire – 17 September 1975, Lancaster) was a Scottish astronomer.
He was born in Doune to Peter Fernie Smart and Isabella Marshall Harrower. He was educated at the McLaren High School, in Callander, and graduated MA from Glasgow University in 1910 in Mathematics and Natural Philosophy. He went on to graduate with a triple first in the Mathematical Triposes at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he won the Tyson Medal for Astronomy.[1]
He served in the Royal Navy during World War I as an instructor in navigation (RN College Greenwich 1915, HMS Emperor of India 1916–19) and then returned to Cambridge in 1919 as a lecturer in Mathematics and John Couch Adams Astronomer (1921–1937). With Commander FN Shearme, he wrote the Admiralty Manual of Navigation (1922). From 1937 to 1959 he was Regius Professor of Astronomy at Glasgow University. The first edition of his Text-Book on Spherical Astronomy (later co-authored) appeared in 1931.[2]
During World War II, Smart published four volumes on sea and air navigation that became textbooks in the armed services. His output was impressive writing more than twenty academic books during his career, and was recognised as a leader in his field.
He was President of the Royal Astronomical Society from 1949 to 1951, and was a member of the Royal Institute of Navigation.[3]
His children included Professor Ninian Smart and the utilitarian philosopher, Professor John Jamieson Carswell "Jack" Smart, (often known as J.J.C Smart).
Published Books
- The Sun, the Stars and the Universe (1928)
- Astrophysics: the characteristics and evolution of the stars (1928)
- Textbook on Spherical Astronomy (1931)
- Stellar Motions (1932)
- Astronomy (1937)
- Stellar dynamics (1938)
- Foundations of Astronomy (1942)
- Introduction to sea & air navigation... (1942)
- Astronomical Navigation: A Handbook for Aviators (1944)
- Some famous stars (1950)
- Celestial Mechanics (1953)
- Foundations of Analytical Geometry (1956)
- Combination of Observations (1958)
- The Origin of the Earth (1959)
- Stellar kinematics (1968)
- The riddle of the universe (1970)
References
| Academic offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Regius Professor of Practical Astronomy at Glasgow University 1937–1959 |
Succeeded by Peter Allan Sweet |
- Use British English from September 2012
- Use dmy dates from September 2012
- Pages using Template:Post-nominals with customized linking
- 1889 births
- 1975 deaths
- People from Stirling (council area)
- Scottish astronomers
- Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh
- Alumni of the University of Glasgow
- Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge
- Royal Navy personnel of World War I
- Scottish sailors
- Academics of the University of Cambridge
- Academics of the University of Glasgow
- Presidents of the Royal Astronomical Society
