James Hopwood Jeans

Sir James Hopwood Jeans OM FRS MA DSc ScD LLD (11 September 1877 in Ormskirk, Lancashire – 16 September 1946 in Dorking, Surrey) was an English physicist, astronomer and mathematician. Educated at Merchant Taylors' School, Northwood, Wilson's Grammar School, Camberwell and Trinity College, Cambridge, he finished Second Wrangler in the university in the Mathematical Tripos of 1898. He taught at Cambridge, but went to Princeton University in 1904 a... more

Sir James Hopwood Jeans OM FRS MA DSc ScD LLD (11 September 1877 in Ormskirk, Lancashire – 16 September 1946 in Dorking, Surrey) was an English physicist, astronomer and mathematician. Educated at Merchant Taylors' School, Northwood, Wilson's Grammar School, Camberwell and Trinity College, Cambridge, he finished Second Wrangler in the university in the Mathematical Tripos of 1898. He taught at Cambridge, but went to Princeton University in 1904 as a professor of applied mathematics. He returned to Cambridge in 1910. He made important contributions in many areas of physics, including quantum theory, the theory of radiation and stellar evolution. His analysis of rotating bodies led him to conclude that Laplace's theory that the solar system formed from a single cloud of gas was incorrect, proposing instead that the planets condensed from material drawn out of the sun by a hypothetical catastrophic near-collision with a passing star. This theory is not accepted today. Jeans, along with... less