Name William Smart Role Astronomer | Children Ninian Smart | |
Died 1975, Lancaster, United Kingdom Education Trinity College, Cambridge, McLaren High School Books Text‑book on Spherical, Combination of Observations, The origin of the earth, Celestial Mechanics, The Riddle of the Universe | ||
Prof William Marshall Smart FRSE FRAS LLD RIN (9 March 1889, Doune, Perthshire – 17 September 1975, Lancaster) was a Scottish astronomer.
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Life
He was born in Doune in Stirlingshire to Peter Fernie Smart and his wife, Isabella Marshall Harrower. He was educated at the McLaren High School, in Callander, and graduated MA from Glasgow University in 1910 in Mathematics and Natural Philosophy. He went on to graduate with a triple first in the Mathematical Triposes at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he won the Tyson Medal for Astronomy.
He served in the Royal Navy during World War I as an instructor in navigation (RN College Greenwich 1915, HMS Emperor of India 1916–19) and then returned to Cambridge in 1919 as a lecturer in Mathematics and John Couch Adams Astronomer (1921–1937). With Commander FN Shearme, he wrote the Admiralty Manual of Navigation (1922). From 1937 to 1959 he was Regius Professor of Astronomy at Glasgow University. The first edition of his Text-Book on Spherical Astronomy (later co-authored) appeared in 1931.
During World War II, Smart published four volumes on sea and air navigation that became textbooks in the armed services. His output was impressive writing more than twenty academic books during his career, and was recognised as a leader in his field.
In 1943 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. His proposers were Edward Hindle, William Michael Herbert Greaves, Edwin Arthur Baker and James Pickering Kendall. He served as the Society's Vice President from 1952 to 1955.
He was President of the Royal Astronomical Society from 1949 to 1951, and was a member of the Royal Institute of Navigation.
Family
His children included Professor Ninian Smart and the utilitarian philosopher, Professor John Jamieson Carswell "Jack" Smart, (often known as J.J.C Smart).