On leaving Oxford, in 1676, Halley visited the south Atlantic island of St. Helena and set up an observatory with a 24-foot-long (7.3 m) telescope which had no tube.
He used the telescope to study stars from the Southern Hemisphere. He later published Catalogus Stellarum Australium which was about the 341 southern stars.[2]
In 1686, Halley published the second part of the results from his St. Helena expedition. This was a paper and chart on trade winds and monsoons. He thought solar heating caused atmospheric motions. He also established the relationship between barometric pressure and height above sea level. His charts were an advance in how to display information visually. Halley also persuaded Sir Isaac Newton to publish a book about his discovery of gravity.
In 1690, Halley built a diving bell, a device in which the atmosphere was replenished by way of weighted barrels of air sent down from the surface.[3] In a demonstration, Halley and five companions dived to 60 feet in the River Thames, and remained there for over an hour and a half. Halley's bell was of little use for practical salvage work, as it was very heavy, but he made improvements to it over time, later extending his underwater exposure time to over 4 hours.[4]
That same year, at a meeting of the Royal Society, Halley introduced a rudimentary working model of a magnetic compass using a liquid-filled housing to damp the swing and wobble of the magnetized needle.[5]
In 1693 Halley published an article on life annuities (a kind of pension), which featured an analysis of age-at-death on the basis of the Breslau statistics Caspar Neumann had been able to provide. This article allowed the British government to sell life annuities at an appropriate price based on the age of the purchaser. Halley's work strongly influenced the development of actuarial science.[7] The construction of the life-table for Breslau, which followed more primitive work by John Graunt, is now seen as a major event in the history of demography.[8]
Named after Halley
Halley (lunar crater)
Halley (Martian crater)
Halley Research Station, Antarctica
Halley's method, for the solution of many equations
Halley Street, a street in Blackburn, Victoria, Australia
Edmund Halley Road, Oxford Science Park, Oxford, OX4 4DQ UK
Halley Ward, surgical ward at Homerton Hospital in East London
These are generally either pronounced /ˈhæli/, rhyming with valley, or /ˈheɪli/"Hailey", though some people will use Halley's supposed pronunciation of his own name, /ˈhɔːli/"Hawley". The "Hailey" pronunciation inspired the rock and roll singer Bill Haley to call the rest of his band his "Comets" after Halley's Comet.[9]
References
↑Although the spelling "Edmund" is quite common, "Edmond" is preferred on the basis of his own recorded usage. The Times (London) Notes and Queries #254, 8 November 1902 p36
↑Edmonds, Carl; Lowry, C; Pennefather, John. "History of diving". South Pacific Underwater Medicine Society Journal. 5 (2). Archived from the original on 2010-10-14. Retrieved 2009-03-17.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
