For the Hollyoaks character, see Lewis Richardson (Hollyoaks) Hollyoaks is a British television soap opera, first broadcast on 23 October 1995, on Channel 4. ... Ben Hull as Lewis Richardson. ...

Lewis Fry Richardson (October 11, 1881 - September 30, 1953) was an innovative mathematician, physicist and psychologist. Image File history File links Lewis_Fry_Richardson. ... is the 284th day of the year (285th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1881 (MDCCCLXXXI) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar). ... is the 273rd day of the year (274th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1953 (MCMLIII) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Leonhard Euler, considered one of the greatest mathematicians of all time A mathematician is a person whose primary area of study and research is the field of mathematics. ... Not to be confused with physician, a person who practices medicine. ... A psychologist is a scientist or clinician who studies psychology, the systematic investigation of the human mind, including behavior and cognition. ...

Family background

One of seven children, he was born in Newcastle upon Tyne, England, into a well-off, merchant Quaker family, and was the son of Catherine Fry and David Richardson. This article is about a city in the United Kingdom. ... For other uses, see England (disambiguation). ... The Religious Society of Friends, commonly known as Quakers, or Friends, is a religious community founded in England in the 17th century. ...

Education and early working life

He entered Bootham School in York in 1894 and fell under the dual influences of pacifist Quaker beliefs and, under master J. Edmund Clark, science, in particular, meteorology. In 1898 he attended Durham College of Science, to study mathematics, physics, chemistry, zoology and botany, before graduating from King's College, Cambridge with a first-class degree in the Natural Science Tripos in 1903. Bootham School is an independent Quaker boarding school in the city of York in North Yorkshire, England. ... York shown within England Coordinates: , Sovereign state Constituent country Region Yorkshire and the Humber Ceremonial county North Yorkshire Admin HQ York City Centre Founded 71 City Status 71 Government  - Type Unitary Authority, City  - Governing body City of York Council  - Leadership: Leader & Executive  - Executive: Liberal Democrat  - MPs: Hugh Bayley (L) John... 1894 (MDCCCXCIV) was a common year starting on Monday (see link for calendar). ... // Meteorology (from Greek: μετέωρον, meteoron, high in the sky; and λόγος, logos, knowledge) is the interdisciplinary scientific study of the atmosphere that focuses on weather processes and forecasting. ... Year 1898 (MDCCCXCVIII) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Monday of the 12-day-slower Julian calendar). ... Euclid, Greek mathematician, 3rd century BC, as imagined by by Raphael in this detail from The School of Athens. ... This is a discussion of a present category of science. ... For other uses, see Chemistry (disambiguation). ... Zoology (from Greek: ζῴον, zoion, animal; and λόγος, logos, knowledge) is the biological discipline which involves the study of animals. ... Pinguicula grandiflora Example of a Cross Section of a Stem [1] Botany is the scientific study of plant life. ... Full name The King’s College of Our Lady and St Nicholas in Cambridge Motto Veritas et Utilitas Truth and usefulness Named after Henry VI Previous names - Established 1441 Sister College(s) New College, Oxford Provost Prof. ... 1900 (MCMIII) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display calendar) of the Gregorian calendar or a common year starting on Friday of the 13-day slower Julian calendar. ...

Richardson's working life reflected his eclectic interests:

• National Physical Laboratory (1903-1904, 1907-1909)
• University College Aberystwyth (1905-1906)
• National Peat Industries (1906-1907) - as a chemist
• Sunbeam Lamp Company (1909-1912) - as manager of the physical and chemical laboratory
• Manchester College of Technology (1912-1913)
• Meteorological Office (1913-1916) - as superintendent of Eskdalemuir Observatory
• Friends Ambulance Unit in France between 1916 and 1919
• Works at the Meteorological Office at Benson, Oxfordshire between 1919 and 1920.
• In 1920 is made Head of the Physics Department at Westminster Training College.
• Between 1929 and 1940 is principal of the Paisley Technical College, now the University of Paisley.

The National Physical Laboratory (NPL) is the national measurement standards laboratory for the United Kingdom, based at Bushy Park in Teddington in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames. ... 1900 (MCMIII) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display calendar) of the Gregorian calendar or a common year starting on Friday of the 13-day slower Julian calendar. ... 1904 (MCMIV) was a leap year starting on a Friday (see link for calendar). ... Year 1907 (MCMVII) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Monday of the 13-day-slower Julian calendar). ... Year 1909 (MCMIX) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Thursday of the 13-day-slower Julian calendar). ... Affiliations University of Wales AMBA ACU Universities UK HiPACT Website http://www. ... 1905 (MCMV) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar). ... 1906 (MCMVI) was a common year starting on Monday (see link for calendar). ... 1906 (MCMVI) was a common year starting on Monday (see link for calendar). ... Year 1907 (MCMVII) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Monday of the 13-day-slower Julian calendar). ... A chemist pours from a round-bottom flask. ... Year 1909 (MCMIX) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Thursday of the 13-day-slower Julian calendar). ... 1912 (MCMXII) was a leap year starting on Monday in the Gregorian calendar (or a leap year starting on Tuesday in the 13-day-slower Julian calendar). ... UMISTs Main Building from Whitworth Street. ... 1912 (MCMXII) was a leap year starting on Monday in the Gregorian calendar (or a leap year starting on Tuesday in the 13-day-slower Julian calendar). ... Year 1913 (MCMXIII) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Tuesday of the 13-day-slower Julian calendar). ... The new building on the edge of Exeter The Met Office (originally an abbreviation for Meteorological Office, but now the official name in itself), which has its headquarters at Exeter in Devon, is the United Kingdoms national weather service. ... Year 1913 (MCMXIII) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Tuesday of the 13-day-slower Julian calendar). ... 1916 (MCMXVI) was a leap year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar). ... The Eskdalemuir Observatory is located in Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland. ... 1916 (MCMXVI) was a leap year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar). ... Year 1919 (MCMXIX) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar). ... Oxfordshire (abbreviated Oxon, from the Latinised form Oxonia) is a county in the South East of England, bordering on Northamptonshire, Buckinghamshire, Berkshire, Wiltshire, Gloucestershire, and Warwickshire. ... 1920 (MCMXX) was a leap year starting on Thursday. ... This is a discussion of a present category of science. ... Year 1929 (MCMXXIX) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1940 (MCMXL) was a leap year starting on Monday (link will display the full 1940 calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... This article needs additional references or sources for verification. ... The University of Paisley operates across three campus sites in the west and south-west of Scotland: Paisley, Ayr and Dumfries. ...

Pacifism

Richardson's Quaker beliefs entailed an ardent pacifism that exempted him from military service during World War I as a conscientious objector though this subsequently disqualified him from holding any academic post. Richardson worked from 1916 to 1919 for the Friends' Ambulance Service attached to the 16th French Infantry Division. After the war, he rejoined the Meteorological Office but was compelled to resign on grounds of conscience when it was amalgamated into the Air Ministry in 1920. He subsequently pursued a career on the fringes of the academic world before retiring in 1940 to research his own ideas. His pacifism had direct consequences on his research interests. According to Korner (see ref), the discovery that his meteorological work was of value to chemical weapons designers led him to abandon all his efforts in this field, and destroy findings that he had yet to publish. Pacifism is the opposition to war or violence as a means of settling disputes or gaining advantage. ... “The Great War ” redirects here. ... It has been suggested that Conscientious objection throughout the world be merged into this article or section. ... 1916 (MCMXVI) was a leap year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar). ... Year 1919 (MCMXIX) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar). ... The Friends Ambulance Unit was a volunteer ambulance service, founded by British Quakers, and mostly staffed by conscientious objectors, that operated from 1914-1919, 1939-1946 and 1946-1959 in twenty-five countries around the world. ... The Air Ministry was formerly a department of the United Kingdom Government, established in 1918 with the responsibility of managing the affairs of the (then newly formed) Royal Air Force. ... 1920 (MCMXX) was a leap year starting on Thursday. ... Year 1940 (MCMXL) was a leap year starting on Monday (link will display the full 1940 calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Thomas William Körner (born February 17, 1946) is a British pure mathematician. ...

Weather forecasting

Richardson's interest in meteorology led him to propose a scheme for weather forecasting by solution of differential equations, the method used today, though, when he published Weather Prediction by Numerical Process in 1922, suitable fast computing was unavailable. He described his ideas thus :- Modern weather predictions aid in timely evacuations and potentially save lives and property damage Weather map of Europe, 10 December 1887 Weather forecasting is the application of science and technology to predict the state of the atmosphere for a future time and a given location. ... A simulation of airflow into a duct using the Navier-Stokes equations A differential equation is a mathematical equation for an unknown function of one or several variables which relates the values of the function itself and of its derivatives of various orders. ... Year 1922 (MCMXXII) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ...

“After so much hard reasoning, may one play with a fantasy? Imagine a large hall like a theatre, except that the circles and galleries go right round through the space usually occupied by the stage. The walls of this chamber are painted to form a map of the globe. The ceiling represents the north polar regions, England is in the gallery, the tropics in the upper circle, Australia on the dress circle and the antarctic in the pit.

A myriad computers are at work upon the weather of the part of the map where each sits, but each computer attends only to one equation or part of an equation. The work of each region is coordinated by an official of higher rank. Numerous little "night signs" display the instantaneous values so that neighbouring computers can read them. Each number is thus displayed in three adjacent zones so as to maintain communication to the North and South on the map.

From the floor of the pit a tall pillar rises to half the height of the hall. It carries a large pulpit on its top. In this sits the man in charge of the whole theatre; he is surrounded by several assistants and messengers. One of his duties is to maintain a uniform speed of progress in all parts of the globe. In this respect he is like the conductor of an orchestra in which the instruments are slide-rules and calculating machines. But instead of waving a baton he turns a beam of rosy light upon any region that is running ahead of the rest, and a beam of blue light upon those who are behindhand.

Four senior clerks in the central pulpit are collecting the future weather as fast as it is being computed, and despatching it by pneumatic carrier to a quiet room. There it will be coded and telephoned to the radio transmitting station. Messengers carry piles of used computing forms down to a storehouse in the cellar.

In a neighbouring building there is a research department, where they invent improvements. But these is much experimenting on a small scale before any change is made in the complex routine of the computing theatre. In a basement an enthusiast is observing eddies in the liquid lining of a huge spinning bowl, but so far the arithmetic proves the better way. In another building are all the usual financial, correspondence and administrative offices. Outside are playing fields, houses, mountains and lakes, for it was thought that those who compute the weather should breathe of it freely.” (Richardson 1922)

(Note that the word computers is used here in its original sense - people who did computations, not machines. Calculator also referred to people at this time.) He was also interested in atmospheric turbulence and performed many terrestrial experiments. The Richardson number, a dimensionless parameter in the theory of turbulence is named after him. He famously summarised the field in rhyming verse in Weather Prediction by Numerical Process (p 66): “Air” redirects here. ... In fluid dynamics, turbulence or turbulent flow is a flow regime characterized by chaotic, stochastic property changes. ... The Richardson number is named after Lewis Fry Richardson (1881 - 1953). ... In the physical sciences, a dimensionless number (or more precisely, a number with the dimensions of 1) is a quantity which describes a certain physical system and which is a pure number without any physical units; it does not change if one alters ones system of units of measurement...

Big whirls have little whirls that feed on their velocity,

and little whirls have lesser whirls and so on to viscosity.

[A play on Jonathan Swift's "Great fleas have little fleas upon their backs to bite 'em, And little fleas have lesser fleas, and so ad infinitum." (1733)].

Richardson's attempt at numerical forecast

One of Richardson's most celebrated achievements is his attempt in hind sight to forecast the weather on a single day - 20 May 1910 - by direct computation. At the time, meteorologists carried out forecasts principally by looking for similar weather patterns from past records, and then extrapolating forward. Richardson attempted to use a mathematical model of the principal features of the atmosphere, and calculate the next day's weather ab initio from data taken at a specific time (7 am). As Lynch makes clear (see references), Richardson's forecast failed dramatically, predicting a huge 145 mbar rise in pressure over 6 hrs when the pressure actually stayed more or less static. However, detailed analysis by Lynch has shown that the cause was a failure to apply smoothing techniques to the data, which rule out unphysical surges in pressure. When these are applied, Richardson's forecast turns out to be essentially accurate - a remarkable achievement considering the calculations were done by hand, and while Richardson was serving with the Quaker ambulance unit in northern France. Ab Initio Software Corporation was founded in the mid 1990s by the former CEO, Sheryl Handler, and several other former employees of Thinking Machines Corporation, after the bankruptcy of that company. ...

Mathematical analysis of war

Richardson also applied his mathematical skills in the service of his pacifist principles, in particular in understanding the roots of international conflict. For this reason, today he is considered the founder, or co-founder (with Quincy Wright and Pitirim Sorokin), of the scientific analysis of conflict; an interdisciplinary field of quantitative and mathematical social science dedicated to systematic investigation of the causes of war and conditions of peace. As he had done with weather, he analyzed war using mainly differential equations and probability theory. Considering the armament of two nations, Richardson posited an idealized system of equations whereby the rate of a nation's armament build-up is directly proportional to the amount of arms its rival has and also to the grievances felt toward the rival, and negatively proportional to the amount of arms it already has itself. Solution of this system of equations allows insightful conclusions to be drawn regarding the nature, and the stability or instability, of various hypothetical conditions which might obtain between nations. Quincy Wright (1890 - 1970) was a U.S. international jurist and political scientist. ... Pitirim Alexandrovich Sorokin (1889-1968) immigrated from Russia to the United States in 1923 where he founded the Department of Sociology at Harvard University. ...

He also originated the theory that the propensity for war between two nations was a function of the length of their common border. And in Arms and Insecurity (1949), and Statistics of Deadly Quarrels (1950), he sought to statistically analyze the causes of war. Factors he assessed included economics, language, and religion. In the preface of the latter, he wrote: "There is in the world a great deal of brilliant, witty political discussion which leads to no settled convictions. My aim has been different: namely to examine a few notions by quantitative techniques in the hope of reaching a reliable answer." Year 1949 (MCMXLIX) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1950 (MCML) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ...

Research on the length of coastlines and borders

While studying the causes of war between two countries, Richardson decided to search for a relation between the probability of two countries going to war and the length of their common border. While collecting data, he realised that there was considerable variation in the various gazetted lengths of international borders. For example, that between Spain and Portugal was variously quoted as 987 or 1214 km while that between The Netherlands and Belgium as 380 or 449 km. For other uses, see War (disambiguation). ... Probability is the likelihood that something is the case or will happen. ... ‹ The template below (Unit of length) is being considered for deletion. ... Motto: Je Maintiendrai (Dutch: Ik zal handhaven, English: I Shall Uphold) Anthem: Wilhelmus van Nassouwe Capital Amsterdam1 Largest city Amsterdam Official language(s) Dutch2 Government Parliamentary democracy Constitutional monarchy  - Queen Beatrix  - Prime minister Jan Peter Balkenende Independence Eighty Years War   - Declared July 26, 1581   - Recognised January 30, 1648 (by Spain...

As part of his research, Richardson investigated how the measured length of a border changes as the unit of measurement is changed. He published empirical statistics which led to a conjectured relationship. This research was quoted by mathematician Benoît Mandelbrot in his 1967 paper How Long Is the Coast of Britain? Benoît B. Mandelbrot, PhD, (born November 20, 1924) is a Franco-American mathematician, best known as the father of fractal geometry. Benoît Mandelbrot was born in Poland, but his family moved to France when he was a child; he is a dual French and American citizen and was... Year 1967 (MCMLXVII) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display full calendar) of the 1967 Gregorian calendar. ... How Long Is the Coast of Britain? Statistical Self-Similarity and Fractional Dimension is a paper by mathematician Benoît Mandelbrot, first published in Science in 1967. ...

Suppose the coast of Britain is measured using a 200 km ruler, specifying that both ends of the ruler must touch the coast. Now cut the ruler in half and repeat the measurement, then repeat again:

Image File history File links Original image presumably created by User:Avsa. ... Image File history File links Original image presumably created by User:Avsa. ... Image File history File links Original image presumably created by User:Avsa. ...

Notice that the smaller the ruler, the bigger the result. It might be supposed that these values would converge to a finite number representing the "true" length of the coastline. However, Richardson demonstrated that the measured length of coastlines and other natural features appears to increase without limit as the unit of measurement is made smaller. Today this is known as the Richardson effect. In mathematics, a set is called finite if there is a bijection between the set and some set of the form {1, 2, ..., n} where is a natural number. ...

Note that Richardson's results do not mean that the coastline of Britain is actually infinitely long. This would require the ability to measure with infinitesimally small rulers, something which quantum physics says cannot be done, as there is a lower limit to the smallness of a measurement, the Planck length. What Richardson's results do show is that natural geographic features, when considered over a wide range of scales, do not behave in the same way as the objects of Euclidean geometry. Fig. ... The Planck length, denoted by , is the unit of length approximately 1. ...

At the time, Richardson's research was ignored by the scientific community. Today, it is seen as one element in the birth of the modern study of fractals. The boundary of the Mandelbrot set is a famous example of a fractal. ...

Richardson died in Kilmun, Argyll, Scotland. Kilmun looking east along the Holy Loch shoreline towards Strone Kilmun is a linear settlement on the north shore of the Holy Loch in Argyll and Bute in south-west Scotland, up to the village of Strone at Strone Point where the loch joins the Firth of Clyde. ... Argyll, sometimes called Argyllshire, is one of the traditional counties of Scotland. ... This article is about the country. ...

Lewis Fry Richardson Medal

Since 1997, the Lewis Fry Richardson Medal has been awarded by the European Geophysical Society for "exceptional contributions to nonlinear geophysics in general" (by EGS until 2003 by EGU by 2004) . For the band, see 1997 (band). ... The European Geosciences Union (or EGU) is an interdisciplinary learned non-profit association open to individuals who are professionally engaged in or associated with geosciences, planetary and space sciences, and related studies. ...

Winners have been:

2007 Ulrich Schumann^[1]

2006 Roberto Benzi

2005 Henk A.Dijkstra

2004 Michael Ghil

2003 Uriel Frisch

2002 F.H. Busse

2001 Julian Hunt

2000 Benoit Mandelbrot

1999 Raymond Hide

1998 Vladimir Keilis-Borok

Professor Julian Hunt ( born 1942, now Lord Hunt of Chesterton) is a leading authority on climate modelling and climate change . ... Beno t Mandelbrot was the first to use a computer to plot the Mandelbrot set. ... Vladimir Keilis-Borok was born in Moscow, Russia on July 31, 1921. ...

See also

• War
• War cycles
• Richardson extrapolation

For other uses, see War (disambiguation). ... War Cycles Wars are complex phenomena with multiple determinants. ... In numerical analysis, Richardson extrapolation is a sequence acceleration method, used to improve the rate of convergence of a sequence. ...

References

• Ashford, O. M. (1985). "Prophet - or Professor? The Life and Work of Lewis Fry Richardson", Bristol: Adam Hilger.
• Korner, T.W. (1996). "A Quaker mathematician" and "Richardson on war", Ch 8 and 9 in The Pleasures of Counting (Cambridge U.P.)
• Lynch, P. (2006) The Emergence of Numerical Weather Prediction (Cambridge U.P.)
• Richardson, L.F. (1939). "Generalized foreign politics". The British Journal of Psychology, monograph supplement #23.
• Richardson, L.F. (1960). Statistics of deadly quarrels. Pacific Grove, CA: Boxwood Press.

1. ^ Text of lecture "From little whorls to the global atmosphere" given by 2007 prizewinner

External links

• O'Connor, John J; Edmund F. Robertson "Lewis Fry Richardson". MacTutor History of Mathematics archive.  
• Peter Lynch of Met Éiriann (June 2004). Richardson's forecast: What went wrong?. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Retrieved on 2007-04-19.
• The Richardson Effect
• Oxford Dictionary of National Biography article by Oliver M. Ashford, ‘Richardson, Lewis Fry (1881–1953)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 accessed 13 May 2007
• "Lewis Fry Richardson and his contributions to Mathematics, Meteorology, and Models of conflicts" by J.C.R. Hunt in Annual Review of Fluid Mechanics