Edward Charles Pickering (July 19, 1846 – February 3, 1919) was an American astronomer and physicist and the older brother of William Henry Pickering. Along with Carl Vogel, Pickering discovered the first spectroscopic binary stars. He wrote Elements of Physical Manipulations (2 vol., 1873–76).
Personal life
Pickering was born at 43 Bowdoin Street in Boston, Massachusetts, on July 19, 1846, to a distinguished, cultivated family consisting of his brother, William Henry Pickering, father, Edward Pickering, and his mother, Charlotte Hammond. Edward's brother, William, was a graduate of MIT and professor of physics and astronomy. Edward was interested in the stars as a boy and constructed his own telescope by the age of 12. Pickering enjoyed his work at the observatory, but he also enjoyed mountain climbing and bicycling in earlier days and later he was an interested spectator of football games. He was co-founder and first president of the Appalachian Mountain Club. He was also a lover of classic music. During the first world war he was busy trying to devise useful applications to win the war. The Pickering Polaris Attachment was a device used to determine the range of guns.]]
Immediately upon graduating from Harvard he was hired as an instructor of mathematics there, and a year later he moved to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to be an assistant professor of physics. During the 10 years he was there, he created the first physics lab in America that was designed for students to publish their own findings and research. Pickering named this lab the Rogers Laboratory of Physics and pronounced himself Director of the Laboratory.
thumb|225x225px|Pickering and the [[Harvard Computers, standing in front of Building C at the Harvard College Observatory, 13 May 1913]]
In 1882, he started his appeals for international variable star observations. This was met with opposition, but eventually such a cooperation was realized in the Variable Star Section of the British Astronomical Association and the American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO). Pickering had a good relationship with the AAVSO and received a gold paper knife with precious stones. Using this method, Pickering and his team captured images of over 220,000 stars. designed a stellar classification system based on an alphabetic system for spectral classes that was first known as the Harvard Stellar Classification and became the basis for the Henry Draper Catalog.
In 1896, Pickering published observations of previously unknown lines in the spectra of the star ζ-Puppis. These lines became known as the Pickering series (or the Pickering–Fowler series) and Pickering attributed them to hydrogen in 1897. Alfred Fowler gave the same attribution to similar lines that he observed in a hydrogen-helium mixture in 1912. Analysis by Niels Bohr included in his 'trilogy' on atomic structure argued that the spectral lines arose from ionized helium, He<sup>+</sup>, and not from hydrogen. Fowler was initially-skeptical but was ultimately convinced that Bohr was correct, and by 1915 "spectroscopists had transferred [the Pickering series] definitively [from hydrogen] to helium." Bohr's theoretical work on the Pickering series had demonstrated the need for "a re-examination of problems that seemed already to have been solved within classical theories" and provided important confirmation for his atomic theory.
Pickering is credited with making the Harvard College Observatory known and respected around the world. It continues today to be a well-respected observatory and program.
Harvard Computers
The Harvard College Observatory was becoming a premiere observatory in the world and with it came the demand for more assistants. These assistants were critical for taking notes, running calculations and performing analytics. College educated women from around the country offered to work for the Harvard Observatory unpaid to gain experience or until proving their value to be paid. During this time, Pickering recruited over 80 women to work for him, including Annie Jump Cannon, Henrietta Swan Leavitt, Antonia Maury, and Florence Cushman. These women, the Harvard Computers (also described as "Pickering's Harem" by the male scientific community at the time), made several important discoveries at HCO. Leavitt's discovery of the period-luminosity relationship for Cepheids, published by Pickering, would prove the foundation for the modern understanding of cosmological distances.
Pickering's treatment of women, during his time, was considered better than most. It is true that they were underpaid compared to their male counterparts and were not given credit nearly as often, but his willingness to include them in the world of astronomy paved the way for many great female scientists and leaders. and heart complications after being ill for around ten days. He is interred in Mount Auburn Cemetery. After his death, Solon Bailey served as interim director. Pickering's friends and colleges would remember him for his great ability, originality, initiative, and warm-heartedness. Pickering would be remembered by the world for his contribution to astronomical photography, advancement of astronomical discoveries, and his progressive view of women.]]
His awards and honors include:
- Pickering was the youngest person to be elected a Member of the National Academy of Sciences in 1873 when he was 26 years old.
- Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1867)
- Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society (1886 and 1901)
- Valz Prize of the French Academy of Sciences (1888)
- Henry Draper Medal from the National Academy of Sciences (1888)
- Member of the American Philosophical Society (1896)
- Bruce Medal (1908)
- Prix Jules Janssen, the highest award of the Société astronomique de France, the French astronomical society (1908)
- LL. D. (honorary degree) at six American universities and two doctor degrees at foreign universities
The following are named in his honor:
- The crater, Pickering lunar crater
- The crater, Pickering martian crater
- Asteroid 784 Pickeringia
- Part of the Veil Nebula, Pickering's Triangle