Sir James (Hopwood) Jeans - Quotes

Astrophysicist and popularizer of science, born in Ormskirk, Lancashire, NW England, UK. He taught at Cambridge (1904–5, 1910–12) and Princeton (1905–9), where he was professor of applied mathematics, then became a research associate at Mt Wilson Observatory, Pasadena until 1944. He made important contributions to the theory of gases, quantum theory, and stellar evolution, and became widely known for his popular exposition of physical and astronomical theories. He was knighted in 1928.

Sir James Hopwood Jeans (September 11, 1877 in Ormskirk, Lancashire – September 16, 1946 in Dorking, Surrey) was a British physicist, astronomer, and mathematician.

Educated at Merchant Taylors' School, Northwood and Trinity College, Cambridge, he finished second in the university in the Mathematical Tripos of 1898.

He made important contributions in many areas of physics, including quantum theory, the theory of radiation, and stellar evolution.

Jeans, along with Arthur Eddington, is a founder of British excellence in cosmology, a fact which persists down to the present day.

His scientific reputation is grounded in the monographs The Dynamical Theory of Gases (1904), Theoretical Mechanics (1906), and Mathematical Theory of Electricity and Magnetism (1908). After retiring in 1929, he wrote a number of books for the lay public, including The Stars in Their Courses (1931), The Universe Around Us, Through Space and Time (1934), The New Background of Science (1933), and The Mysterious Universe. These books made Jeans fairly well known as an expositor of the revolutionary scientific discoveries of his day, especially in relativity and physical cosmology.

He married twice, first the American poet Charlotte Mitchell in 1907, then the Austrian organist and harpsichordist Suzanne Hock (better known as Susi Jeans) in 1935.

At Merchant Taylors' School there is a James Jeans Academic Scholarship for the candidate in the entrance exams who displays outstanding results across the spectrum of subjects but notably in Mathematics and Sciences.

Quotes

"The stream of knowledge is heading towards a non-mechanical reality;

"Life exists in the universe only because the carbon atom possesses certain exceptional properties."

Regarding reverse time travel: "One must stand stiller than still."