The Bruce Medalists: Frederick H. Seares

<body bgcolor="#9CCEFF"> <font size="+5"><b><a href="../Intro.html" target="main"><font color="#CC6600">The Bruce Medalists</font></a></b></font> <p>  </p> <table width="100%" cellspacing="2" cellpadding="0" border="0"> <tr><td width = "33%"> </td> <td width = "34%" align="center"><a href="seares.jpg"><img src="searesSml.jpg" alt="" height="120" width="91" border="2"></a></td> <td width="33%" valign="middle"><font size="-2">Photo 1896, courtesy Mary Lea Shane Archives, Lick Observatory</font></td></tr> <tr><td colspan="3" align="center"><font size="+2"><b><font color="#CC6600">Frederick Hanley Seares</font></b></font></td></tr> <tr><td width="33%"><b>17 May 1873</b></td> <td width = "34%" align="center"><b>1940 Bruce Medalist</b></td> <td align="right"><b>20 July 1964</b></td> </tr> </table> <p>Frederick Seares was born in Michigan and raised in Iowa and southern California. He earned his B.S. at the <b><a href="http://www.berkeley.edu/about/history/">University of California</a></b>, after which he continued his studies in <b><a href="http://www.obspm.fr/histoire/">Paris</a></b> and <b><a href="http://bdaugherty.tripod.com/astronomy/berlin.html">Berlin</a></b>. He taught and investigated comets and variable stars for eight years at the <b><a href="http://www.missouri.edu/about/history/">University of Missouri</a></b>, where <b><a href="../shapley/">Harlow Shapley</a></b> was his student. In 1909 he joined the staff of <b><a href="../Hale/">George E. Hale</a></b>’s <b><a href="http://www.mtwilson.edu/">Mt. Wilson Observatory</a></b>, where he remained for 36 years, fifteen of them as assistant director. He photographed stars in “selected areas” as part of <b><a href="../Kapteyn/index.html">Jacobus C. Kapteyn</a></b>’s worldwide effort to determine the structure of the sidereal universe. Using photography Seares standardized the stellar magnitude system and extended it beyond the 18th magnitude. He used absorbing wire gauze screens and reduced apertures to compare stars of vastly different brightness. He was a pioneer in measuring and interpreting color indices of stars. He also published extensively on the brightness of the Milky Way compared to that of external galaxies and investigated interstellar absorption and reddening of starlight. For many years he supervised the Mt. Wilson computers (human, usually female) and edited the publications of the Mt. Wilson Observatory.</p> <p> <b><font size="+1"><font color="#CC6600">Presentation of Bruce medal</font></FONT></b><br> <a href="../Joy/">Joy, Alfred H.</a>, <a href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1940PASP...52...69J"><i>PASP</i> <b>52</b>, 69-79 (1940)</a>.</p> <p><b><font size="+1"><font color="#CC6600">Some offices held</font></FONT></b><br> <a href="http://www.astrosociety.org/">Astronomical Society of the Pacific</a>, President, 1929.<br> </p> <p> <b><font size="+1"><font color="#CC6600">Biographical materials</font></FONT></b><br> Dieke, Sally H., <i>Dictionary of Scientific Biography </i><b>12</b>, 264-66.<br> Huntington Library, <a href="http://texts.cdlib.org/view?docId=tf7779n8v9&chunk.id=bioghist-1.8.3">Biographical Note accompanying papers</a><br> <a href="../joy/index.html">Joy, Alfred H.</a>, <a href="http://www.nasonline.org/publications/biographical-memoirs/memoir-pdfs/Seares_Frederic.pdf"><i>Biographical Memoirs of the National Academy of Science</i> <b>39</b>, 417-44</a><br> </p> <p><b><font size="+1"><font color="#CC6600">Obituaries</font></FONT></b><br> <br> <a href="http://adsbit.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-iarticle_query?bibcode=%3F%3F%3F%3FPASP...76&db_key=AST&whole_paper=NO&page=366&type=SCREEN_GIF&data_type=GIF&cover=1"><i>PASP</i> <b>76</b>, 366-67 (1964)</a>.<br> Redman, R.O., <a href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1966QJRAS...7...75"><i>QJRAS</i> <b>7</b>, 75-79 (1966)</a>.<br> <i>Sky & Telescope</i> <b>28</b>, 3, 123 (1964).<br> </p> <p><b><font size="+1"><font color="#CC6600">Portraits</font></FONT></b><br> <a href="http://photos.aip.org/">AIP Center for History of Physics</a><br> <a href="http://www.tayabeixo.org/biografias/may_2q/may_2q.htm">La Web de la Asociación Larense de Astronomía</a> (painting)<br> <a href="http://archives.caltech.edu/search_catalog.cfm?results_file=Detail_View&recsPerPage=1&firstRecToShow=1&search_field=seares&entry_type=photo&photo_id=&cat_series=" >Caltech Archives</a> (with W. Mayer, R.C. Tolman, Einsteins)<br> </p> <p><b><font size="+1"><font color="#CC6600">Named after him</font></FONT></b><br> <a href="http://planetarynames.wr.usgs.gov/">Lunar crater Seares</a><br> <a href="http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/iau/lists/MPNames.html">Minor Planet #11766 Fredseares</a><br> </p> <p><b><font size="+1"><a href="SearesRefs.html" target="_self">More references</a></font></b></p> <div align="center"><b><a href="../Intro.html" target="main">The Bruce Medalists</a></b></div> <table width="100%"> <tr> <td valign="TOP"><font size="-1">Please send comments, additions, corrections, and questions to<br> <a href="MAILTO:joe.tenn@sonoma.edu"> joe.tenn@sonoma.edu</a><br></font></td> <td align="RIGHT" valign="TOP"><font size="-1"><i> <a href="http://www.phys-astro.sonoma.edu/people/faculty/tenn/">JST</a> </i><br> <a href="http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/iso-time.html">2013-01-24</a></font></td> </tr> </table> </body>