Edwin Brant Frost
Encyclopedia
Biography
He was born in Brattleboro, VermontVermont
Vermont is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. The state ranks 43rd in land area, , and 45th in total area. Its population according to the 2010 census, 630,337, is the second smallest in the country, larger only than Wyoming. It is the only New England...
. His father, Carlton Pennington Frost, was dean of Dartmouth Medical School
Dartmouth Medical School
Dartmouth Medical School is the medical school of Dartmouth College, located in Hanover, New Hampshire, in the United States. The fourth-oldest medical school in the United States, Dartmouth Medical School was founded in 1797 by New England physician Nathan Smith and grew steadily over the course...
.
Frost graduated from Dartmouth
Dartmouth College
Dartmouth College is a private, Ivy League university in Hanover, New Hampshire, United States. The institution comprises a liberal arts college, Dartmouth Medical School, Thayer School of Engineering, and the Tuck School of Business, as well as 19 graduate programs in the arts and sciences...
in 1886. He continued his education as a post-graduate student in chemistry and in 1887 became an instructor in physics while only 21 years old. In 1890 Frost went abroad to Europe and ended up researching stellar spectroscopy under Hermann Vogel
Hermann Carl Vogel
Hermann Carl Vogel was a German astronomer. He was born in Leipzig, Kingdom of Saxony.Vogel pioneered the use of the spectroscope in astronomy...
in Potsdam
Astrophysical Institute Potsdam
Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam is a German research institute. It is the successor of the Berlin Observatory founded in 1700 and of the Astrophysical Observatory Potsdam founded in 1874. The latter was the world's first observatory to emphasize explicitly the research area of...
. He returned to Dartmouth
Dartmouth College
Dartmouth College is a private, Ivy League university in Hanover, New Hampshire, United States. The institution comprises a liberal arts college, Dartmouth Medical School, Thayer School of Engineering, and the Tuck School of Business, as well as 19 graduate programs in the arts and sciences...
in 1892 as an assistant professor of astronomy.
He was fond of the outdoors and enjoyed golf
Golf
Golf is a precision club and ball sport, in which competing players use many types of clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a golf course using the fewest number of strokes....
, swimming
Swimming (sport)
Swimming is a sport governed by the Fédération Internationale de Natation .-History: Competitive swimming in Europe began around 1800 BCE, mostly in the form of the freestyle. In 1873 Steve Bowyer introduced the trudgen to Western swimming competitions, after copying the front crawl used by Native...
, and ice skating
Ice skating
Ice skating is moving on ice by using ice skates. It can be done for a variety of reasons, including leisure, traveling, and various sports. Ice skating occurs both on specially prepared indoor and outdoor tracks, as well as on naturally occurring bodies of frozen water, such as lakes and...
. He also enjoyed music
Music
Music is an art form whose medium is sound and silence. Its common elements are pitch , rhythm , dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture...
and literature
Literature
Literature is the art of written works, and is not bound to published sources...
. In 1896 he married Mary E. Hazard. They had three children, Katharine, Frederick, and Benjamin.
Frost joined the staff of Yerkes Observatory
Yerkes Observatory
Yerkes Observatory is an astronomical observatory operated by the University of Chicago in Williams Bay, Wisconsin. The observatory, which calls itself "the birthplace of modern astrophysics," was founded in 1897 by George Ellery Hale and financed by Charles T. Yerkes...
in 1898 and became its director in 1905 when George Hale
George Ellery Hale
George Ellery Hale was an American solar astronomer.-Biography:Hale was born in Chicago, Illinois. He was educated at MIT, at the Observatory of Harvard College, , and at Berlin . As an undergraduate at MIT, he is known for inventing the spectroheliograph, with which he made his discovery of...
resigned. Frost kept the position until his retirement in 1932. He was the editor of the Astrophysical Journal
Astrophysical Journal
The Astrophysical Journal is a peer-reviewed scientific journal covering astronomy and astrophysics. It was founded in 1895 by the American astronomers George Ellery Hale and James Edward Keeler. It publishes three 500-page issues per month....
from 1902 to 1932, known for his careful attention to details. In 1915 he lost the use of his right eye and in 1921, his left. Despite his blindness he continued working for eleven more years until his retirement in 1932.
He died in 1935 in Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
from peritonitis
Peritonitis
Peritonitis is an inflammation of the peritoneum, the serous membrane that lines part of the abdominal cavity and viscera. Peritonitis may be localised or generalised, and may result from infection or from a non-infectious process.-Abdominal pain and tenderness:The main manifestations of...
.
Legacy
Frost's research focused on the determination of radial velocityRadial velocity
Radial velocity is the velocity of an object in the direction of the line of sight . In astronomy, radial velocity most commonly refers to the spectroscopic radial velocity...
using stellar spectroscopy and spectroscopic binaries. In 1902, he discovered the strange behavior of Beta Cephei
Beta Cephei
Beta Cephei is a third magnitude star in the constellation Cepheus. It has the traditional name Alfirk , meaning "The Flock" This star, along with α Cep and η Cep , were Al Kawākib al Firḳ , meaning "the Stars of The Flock" by Ulug Beg...
, which later became the prototype for Beta Cephei variable
Beta Cephei variable
Beta Cephei variables are variable stars which exhibit variations in their brightness due to pulsations of the stars' surfaces. The point of maximum brightness roughly corresponds to the maximum contraction of the star. Typically, Beta Cephei variables change in brightness by 0.01 to 0.3...
stars.
He played a significant role in bringing Otto Struve
Otto Struve
Otto Struve was a Russian astronomer. In Russian, his name is sometimes given as Otto Lyudvigovich Struve ; however, he spent most of his life and his entire scientific career in the United States...
to the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, when the latter was living as an impoverished refugee in Turkey
Turkey
Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...
after the Russian Revolution
Russian Revolution of 1917
The Russian Revolution is the collective term for a series of revolutions in Russia in 1917, which destroyed the Tsarist autocracy and led to the creation of the Soviet Union. The Tsar was deposed and replaced by a provisional government in the first revolution of February 1917...
. He later supported the appointment of Struve as his successor as director of Yerkes Observatory.
Asteroid
Asteroid
Asteroids are a class of small Solar System bodies in orbit around the Sun. They have also been called planetoids, especially the larger ones...
854 Frostia
854 Frostia
854 Frostia is an asteroid orbiting the Sun. It is named after Edwin Brant Frost, an American astronomer.A satellite, designated S/2004 1, was identified based on lightcurve observations in July 2004 by Raoul Behrend, Laurent Bernasconi, Alain Klotz, and Russell I. Durkee...
is named in his honor.