C. H. D. Buys Ballot

"Buys-Ballot" redirects here. For the lunar crater, seeBuys-Ballot (crater).

C. H. D. Buys Ballot
C. H. D. Buys Ballot
Born	October 10, 1817 Kloetinge,Netherlands
Died	February 3, 1890(1890-02-04)(aged 72) Utrecht,Netherlands
Nationality	Dutch
Alma mater	Utrecht University
Known for	Buys-Ballot's law
Scientific career
Fields	chemistry meteorology
Doctoral students	Willem Henri Julius

Christophorus Henricus Diedericus Buys Ballot(Dutch pronunciation:[ˈbœysbaːˈlɔt];October 10, 1817 – February 3, 1890) was a Dutchchemistandmeteorologistafter whomBuys Ballot's lawand the Buys Ballot table are named. He was first chairman of theInternational Meteorological Organization,the organization that would become theWorld Meteorological Organization.

Biography

Ballot in 1857.

Buys Ballot was the son of a Dutch Reformed minister, born inKloetinge,Netherlands.He attended the Gymnasium atZaltbommeland theUniversityofUtrecht.After receiving his doctorate in 1844, he became lecturer inmineralogyandgeologyat Utrecht; he added theoreticalchemistryin 1846. In 1847 he was appointed professor ofmathematicsand from 1867 until his retirement he was professor ofphysics.

Buys Ballot tested theDoppler effectfor sound waves in 1845 by using a group of musicians playing a calibrated note on a train in the Utrecht-Amsterdam line.

He died in the Dutch city ofUtrecht.

Accomplishments

Wall art inUtrechtdepicting a study of theDoppler effect

Buys Ballot is best known for his accomplishments in the field ofmeteorology,specifically the explanation of the direction of air flow in large weather systems. Furthermore, he founded theRoyal Dutch Meteorological Institutein 1854 and he remained its chief director until his death.He was one of the first to see the need for international cooperation, and in 1873 he organized and became the first chairman of theInternational Meteorological Organization,a precursor of theWorld Meteorological Organization(WMO).

Buys Ballot's lawstates that if a person in theNorthern Hemispherestands with his back to the wind, the atmospheric pressure is low to the left, high to the right. His main research effort in meteorology went into examining long-time series for regularities; he was more concerned with establishing the regularities than in explaining them. He made no contributions to the theory of meteorology which is perhaps surprising given his training in physics. The contrast with his American contemporary,William Ferrel,who discovered Buys-Ballot's law slightly earlier, is striking.

Buys Ballot devised a tabular method for investigating periodicity intime series.In 1847 he used the table now named after him to determine the period of the sun's rotation from daily observations of temperature in the Netherlands from 1729 to 1846.

Buys Ballot became member of theRoyal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciencesin 1855and an honorary member of theFinnish Society of Sciences and Lettersin 1887.

Among his students was the prominent DutchastronomerJacobus Kapteyn.

Eponym

In 1970 thelunar craterBuys-Ballot,on thefar side of the Moon,was named in his honour.

Bibliography

• Harold L. Burstyn "Buys Ballot, Christoph Hendrik Diederik"Dictionary of Scientific Biographyvolume 1, p. 628, New York: Scribners 1973.
• E. van EverdingenC. H. D. Buys Ballot 1817-1890The Hague 1953.
• O. B. Sheynin On the History of the Statistical Method in Meteorology,Archive for the History of the Exact Sciences,31, (1984-5) 53-95.
• J. L. KleinStatistical Visions in Time,Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1997.
• Houdas, Y. (April 1991). "[Doppler, Buys-Ballot, Fizeau. Historical note on the discovery of the Doppler's effect]".Annales de cardiologie et d'angéiologie(in French).40(4): 209–13.PMID2053764.
• Jonkman, E. J. (1980). "Doppler research in the nineteenth century".Ultrasound in Medicine & Biology.6(1): 1–5.doi:10.1016/0301-5629(80)90056-3.PMID6989075.

External links

• M. Buys-Ballot, "Note sur le rapport de l'intensite et de la direction du vent avec les ecarts simultanes du barometre",Comptes Rendus,Vol. 45 (1857), pp. 765–768.