Dino
Bever
Mr.
Dacey
Astronomy
Honors Period. 5
March
23, 2014
Asaph Hall
Asaph Hall the 3rd was
born on the 15th of October in 1829 in Goshen, Connecticut. Asaph died the 22nd of November,
1907 in Annapolis, Maryland. He was
forced to grow up early as a child as his father died at the age of 13, so he
had to help provide for his family. Hall’s education suffered as he dropped out
of school at the age of 16 to become an apprentice to a carpenter. Asaph Hall
in his later years in his life had four children with his wife Angeline Hall,
who happened to be his ex-Geometry teacher/ German teacher whilst he attended
the Central College in McGrawville. His four children were Asaph Hall Jr. who
would go on to follow in his father’ footsteps becoming a famous astronomer,
Samuel Stickney Hall, a life insurance worker, Angelo Hall a professor of
mathematics at the US Naval Academy, and Percival Hall who became the president
of Gallaudet University.
Asaph Hall enrolled
at the Central College in McGrwaville, New York, studying mathematics; only for
a brief period of time though, as he quickly found work at Harvard working in
its observatory. For almost being
completely self-taught in the arts of physics and astronomy Hall made great
leaps in many subjects, publishing almost 500 papers. His papers covering a
broad range of subjects such as: double stars, Mercury’s perihelion, natural satellites,
the mass of Mars, soar and stellar parallax, Saturn’s rings, and even the value
of Pi. In 1877 on the 15th and the 17th of August, with
the assistance of the USNO 26-inch telescope, the largest refracting telescope
in the world at that time, Asaph Hall discovered Phobos and Deimos, the two
Martian moons.
For his discoveries Hall was given the Gold Medal of
the Royal Astronomical Society in 1879, in 1893 the Arago Medal, and in 1896 he
was made a chevalier in the Ordre national de Legion d’honneur. His work on Pi would later go on to be used
in the Manhattan project by Nicholas Metropolis, being renamed the Monte Carlo
method. Due to his discoveries and life’s works Hall was honored with having
named after him the Hall crater on the moon as well as the Hall crater on the
Martian Moon Phobos, in addition to asteroid 3299 Hall.
