The Bruce Medalists: Alfred H. Joy

<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" > <tr><td width = "33%"> </td> <td width = "34%" align="center"><a href="joy1948.jpg"><img src="joy1948sm.jpg" alt="portrait" height="121" width="91" border="2"></a></td> <td width="33%" valign="middle"><font size="-2">Photo 1948, <a href="http://photofiles.lib.uchicago.edu/db.xqy?one=apf6-04400.xml">Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library</a>.</font></td></tr> <tr><td colspan="3" align="center"><font size="+2"><b><font color="#CC6600">Alfred Harrison Joy</font></b></font></td> <tr><td width = "33%"><b>23 Sep1882</b></td> <td width = "34%" align="center"><b>1950 Bruce Medalist</b></td> <td align="right"><b>18 April 1973</b></td> </tr> </table> <p>After earning his bachelor’s degree at <b><a href="http://www.greenville.edu/about/">Greenville College</a></b> in Illinois and his M.A. at <b><a href="http://new.oberlin.edu/about/history.dot">Oberlin College</a></b>, Alfred Joy taught ten years at the <b><a href="http://www.aub.edu.lb/tour/nojava/b12.html">American University of Beirut</a></b>, where he photographed Halley’s Comet in 1910. He spent several summers and one year at <b><a href="http://astro.uchicago.edu/vtour/history/">Yerkes Observatory</a></b> and also studied for short periods at <b><a href="http://etc.princeton.edu/CampusWWW/Companion/astrophysical_sciences_department.html">Princeton</a></b> (under <b><a href="../Russell/index.html">Henry Norris Russell</a></b>) and several European observatories. When World War I prevented his return to Beirut in 1915 he joined the staff of <b><a href="http://www.mtwilson.edu/">Mt. Wilson Observatory</a></b>. He remained active there nearly sixty years, although officially retired after 1948. After early solar work with <b><a href="../Hale/index.html">G.E. Hale</a></b>’s team, Joy applied <b><a href="../Adams/index.html">Walter S. Adams</a></b>’s method of spectroscopic parallax to determine the distances of thousands of stars. When he retired nearly half of all published radial velocities of stars had been found at Mt. Wilson, largely through his efforts. He measured radial velocities of Cepheid variable stars and confirmed the distance and direction of the Galactic center and the sun’s rate of revolution about it. He specialized in the spectroscopy of variable stars, and also studied spectra of comets and novae. He invented the classification of <b><a href="http://www.peripatus.gen.nz/Astronomy/TTauSta.html">T Tauri stars</a></b> and made extensive studies of them. He edited the popular <i>Leaflets of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific</i> from 1945 to 1968.</p> <p> <b><font size="+1"><font color="#CC6600">Presentation of Bruce medal</font></FONT></b><br> Trumpler, Robert J., <a href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1950PASP...62...33T"><i>PASP</i> <b>62</b>, 33-36 (1950)</a>.</p> <p>  <p><b><font size="+1"><font color="#CC6600">Some offices held</font></FONT></b><br> <a href="http://aas.org/">American Astronomical Society</a>, President, 1949-52.<br> <a href="http://www.astrosociety.org/">Astronomical Society of the Pacific</a>, President, 1931, 1939.<br> </p> <p> <b><font size="+1"><font color="#CC6600">Biographical materials</font></FONT></b><br> Bitterman, Jay, <a href="http://www.lcas-astronomy.org/articles/display.php?filename=alfred_h_joy&category=biographies">Lake County Astronomical Society</a><br> <a href="http://www.oac.cdlib.org/view?docId=tf6199n7tp;query=;style=oac4;view=admin#bioghist-1.8.3">Huntington LIbrary, with Finding Aid to papers</a><br> <a href="../Wilson/index.html">Wilson, O.C.</a>, <a href="http://www.nasonline.org/publications/biographical-memoirs/memoir-pdfs/joy-alfred-h.pdf"><i>Biographical Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences</i> <b>47</b>, 225-47 (1975)</a>.</p> <p><b><font size="+1"><font color="#CC6600">Obituaries</font></FONT></b><br> Abt, Helmut A., <i>Mercury</i> <b>2</b>, 3, 15 and <b>2</b>, 5, 9-10 (1973).<br> <a href="../Herbig/index.html">Herbig, George H.</a>, <a href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1974QJRAS..15..526."><i>QJRAS</i> <b>15</b>, 526-31 (1974)</a>.<br> <br> </p> <p><b><font size="+1"><font color="#CC6600">Portraits</font></FONT></b><br> <a href="http://photos.aip.org/index.jsp">AIP Center for History of Physics</a><br> <a href="joy1972.jpg">90th birthday photo, 1972, courtesy Observatories of the Carnegie Institution of Washington</a> </p> <p><b><font size="+1"><font color="#CC6600">Named after him</font></FONT></b><br> <a href="http://planetarynames.wr.usgs.gov/Feature/2851?__fsk=785130599">Lunar crater Joy</a><br> <a href="http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/iau/lists/MPNames.html#A">Minor Planet #11769 Alfredjoy</a><br> </p> <p><b><font size="+1"><a href="JoyRefs.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">2012-12-26</a></font></td> </tr> </table> </body>