Arthur Thomas Doodson
Arthur Thomas Doodson | |
|---|---|
| Born | 31 March 1890 |
| Died | 10 January 1968 (aged 77) Birkenhead, Merseyside |
| Resting place | Flaybrick Memorial Gardens, Birkenhead |
| Alma mater | University of Liverpool |
| Known for | Doodson numbers;Riccati-Bessel function |
| Spouse(s) | Margaret Galloway (d.1931>); Elsie May |
| Children | 2 |
| Awards | Fellow of the Royal Society (1933) |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Theory of tides |
| Thesis | Bessel functions of half integral order. (Riccati-Bessel functions.) (1919) |
| Doctoral advisor | Joseph Proudman |
Arthur Thomas Doodson (31 March 1890 – 10 January 1968) was a British mathematician and oceanographer, who worked on tidal analysis at Liverpool Observatory and Tidal Institute from 1919 to 1960.
Profoundly deaf, he could not become a teacher and started as meter tester before he obtained his M.Sc.degree at the University of Liverpool, advised by Joseph Proudman. He briefly worked under Karl Pearson first in statistics, then in ballistics calculating shell trajectories until the end of WWI. Joining the newly founded Tidal Institute in Liverpool in 1919 he produced tide tables, and was involved in designing tide-predicting machines. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. During WWII he calculated the best combination of full moon and ideal tidal conditions for D-Day on 6 June 1944. He was involved in work for the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics.