The Edmond Halley Biography....including the comet

Edmond Halley’s Early Years and Career

The Edmond Halley Biography begins in Haggerston, London, England on November 8, 1665. The son of Edmond Halley, a wealthy soap boiler, Halley was privately tutored until going to St. Paul’s School and then onto the Queen’s College, Oxford. Edmond Halley, sometimes called Edmund, was always very interested in mathematics as a child. By the time he began college, Halley was already an expert astronomer.

At the end of his college years, Edmond Halley went to the south Atlantic island of St. Helena for 2 years. He studied the starts of the southern hemisphere. He then published the book, Catalogus Stellarum Australium. The book included his star maps of the southern hemisphere and details about 341 stars. A few years later Halley a paper and chart on the trade winds and monsoons. It also established barometric pressure and the height above sea level.

During this time Halley spent his time traveling. It was during these travels that he saw his first comet and spent time working with Cassini on trying to map its orbit. When he returned to England, Edmond Halley married, Mary Tooke.

The Edmond Halley Biography includes the meeting of Halley and Sir Isaac Newton, Halley was studying Kepler’s law of planetary motion at the time. When he discovered Newton had already solved the problem, but had never published his findings. Halley funded the publication of Sir Isaac Newton’s Principia Mathematica Philosophiae Naturalis.

Among his many accomplishments was a diving bell which eventually allowed a person to remain under water for over 4 hours. The Edmond Halley biography also shows he did studies on age of death in the town of Breslau and published an article on life annuities which was a huge event in the study of demographics.

Edmond Halley and Astronomy

After his appointment as Savilian professor of geometry at Oxford and was given an honorary degree in law. It was here that he began applying ancient astronomy. He published his belief that the comet seen in 1456, 1531, 1607, and 1682 was actually the same comet. He then went on to predict it would reappear in 1758. Sadly Edmond Halley never got the see the comet that was later named for him, Halley’s Comet.

Edmond Halley eventually became the Royal Astronomer, a position he held until his death on January 14, 1742. He was buried at St. Margaret’s Church in Lee, London, England.

Named After Halley