Hubert Anson Newton

Hubert Anson Newton (1830 to 1896), usually cited as H. A. Newton, was an American astronomer and mathematician noted for his research on meteors. Born at Sherburne, New York, he graduated from Yale in 1850, served as tutor from 1853 and was appointed professor of mathematics in 1855, deferring the post for a year to attend lectures in Europe, including those of Michel Chasles on projective geometry at the Sorbonne. He is best known for his study of the laws of meteors and comets: from 1860 he used accounts of observed meteors to estimate their height and velocity, and from 1861 he supervised coordinated observations by the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences, whose 1865 results showed that meteor showers in different months occur at different altitudes. He also showed that the drift in timing of meteor showers over centuries is explained by the precession of the equinoxes. Newton played an important role in American mathematics at Yale, which began granting doctoral degrees in mathematics in 1830, and E. H. Moore was one of his most prominent graduates. He was a founding member of the National Academy of Sciences and president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1885.