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Fred Lawrence Whipple
Sign in to saveAlso known as Fred Whipple, Fred L. Whipple, F. L. Whipple
American astronomer
OverviewAI-generated
Fred Lawrence Whipple was an American astronomer born in Red Oak in 1906 and died in Cambridge in 2004. He was educated at Occidental College, the University of California, Los Angeles, and the University of California, Berkeley. Whipple served as an employee of Harvard University and studied under doctoral advisor Donald Howard Menzel. He worked in the field of astronomy and spoke English.
Throughout his career, Whipple received several awards, including the Henry Norris Russell Lectureship, the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society, the Bruce Medal, and the J. Lawrence Smith Medal. He was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Sciences, and the American Philosophical Society. His work is recognized in the American Academy Arts Sciences collection.
Synthesized by Vinony from 18 facts across 2 sources: Wikidata, Vinony collections. Generated from structured data (not the Wikipedia text) and checked against those facts — may still contain errors.
Key facts
- Born
- ( 1906-11-05 ) November 5, 1906, Red Oak, Iowa , U.S.
- Died
- August 30, 2004 (2004-08-30) (aged 97), Cambridge, Massachusetts , U.S.
- Education
- University of California, Los Angeles , University of California, Berkeley
- Known for
- Composition of comets , Whipple shield , Operation Moonwatch
- Fields
- Astronomy
- Institutions
- Harvard College Observatory , Harvard–Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
- Thesis
- A Spectrophotometric Study of the Cepheid Variables η Aquilae and δ Cephei (1931)
- Doctoral advisor
- Donald Menzel , Armin Leuschner
- Doctoral students
- Leland Cunningham , James W. Warwick , Harlan James Smith , Frances Woodworth Wright , Joseph Veverka
via Wikipedia infobox
Wikidata facts
- Instance of
- human
- Given name
- Lawrence
- Gender
- male
- Citizenship
- United States
- Place of birth
- Red Oak
- Place of death
- Cambridge
- Occupation
- astronomer
- Educated at
- Occidental College
- Employer
- Harvard University
- Languages spoken
- English language
- Doctoral advisor
- Donald Howard Menzel
- Field of work
- astronomy
- Image
- Fred Whipple 1927.jpg
Show 6 more facts
- date of birth
- 1906-11-05
- date of death
- 2004-08-30
- member of
- American Philosophical Society
- Commons category
- Fred Lawrence Whipple
- maintained by WikiProject
- WikiProject Mathematics
- name in native language
- Fred Lawrence Whipple
Sources (3)
via Wikidata · CC0
~13 min read
Encyclopedic overview
Fred Lawrence Whipple (November 5, 1906 – August 30, 2004) was an American astronomer, who worked at the Harvard College Observatory for more than 70 years. Among his achievements were asteroid and comet discoveries, the "dirty snowball" hypothesis of comets, and the invention of the Whipple shield.
Early life and education
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Fred Lawrence Whipple” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.