astronomy

Kenneth Edgeworth

Kenneth Edgeworth is a astronomy topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Kenneth Edgeworth rather than just read about it. In short: Kenneth Essex Edgeworth (26 February 1880 – 10 October 1972) was an Irish army officer, engineer, economist and independent theoretical astronomer. He was born in Street, County Westmeath.

Key takeaways

Kenneth Edgeworth belongs to astronomy; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Kenneth Edgeworth to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Kenneth Edgeworth from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Kenneth Essex Edgeworth (26 February 1880 – 10 October 1972) was an Irish army officer, engineer, economist and independent theoretical astronomer. He was born in Street, County Westmeath. Edgeworth is best known for proposing the existence of a disc of bodies beyond the orbit of Neptune in the 1930s. Observations later confirmed the existence of the Edgeworth-Kuiper belt in 1992. Those distant solar system bodies, including Pluto, Eris and Makemake, are now grouped into the Edgeworth-Kuiper belt, or Kuiper belt.

Early life

Edgeworth was born on 26 February 1880 at Daramona House Street, County Westmeath. His parents were Elizabeth Dupré (née Wilson) and land agent Thomas Newcomen Edgeworth, both of Anglo-Irish ancestry. He was from one of 'the archetypal gentleman literary and scientific families' (McFarland, 1996). His father's family was from Kilshruley, Ballinalee, County Longford near Edgeworthstown, whose estates were the seats of his ancestors. William Wilson, his uncle on his mother's side and the owner of Daramona House, built an observatory and workshop there and with George Minchin and George Fitzgerald made various types of observations, including pioneering photometric measurements of starlight. Edgeworth's family moved to the estate at Kilshruley four years after his birth. It had 'Grubb 12-inch' and '24-inch reflectors' which his uncle had acquired from Sir Howard Grubb of Dublin a year after he went on an expedition to Algeria to observe the 1870 total eclipse, at just age 19. He remained a regular visitor to the observatory, meeting Wilson's scientific friends George Minchin and George Fitzgerald. His observations included the 1882 transit of Venus. Later in Edgeworth's life he devoted his autobiography to them. It was his uncle who proposed Edgeworth to the Royal Astronomical Society (RAS). After residing at Daramona, Edgeworth's parents moved to Ardglas House and then to Mount Murray, near Lough Owel. After about four years at Mount Murray, they moved to the family home at Kilshruley, about 7 miles (11 km) miles from Edgeworthstown to join Kenneth Essex's grandfather, the retired clergyman Essex Edgeworth. At Kilshruley, Kenneth Essex developed his engineering skills in his father's well-equipped workshop, building small engines, and also experimenting with fireworks and photography.

Military career When aged 17, Edgeworth attended the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, London, where he won the Pollock Medal for best cadet in 1898. He also attended the Royal School of Military Engineering at Chatham and served a commission in the Corps of Royal Engineers in Egypt. Posted to South Africa, he took part in the Second Boer War and was promoted to lieutenant on 3 July 1901. Following the end of the war he left Cape Town on the SS Englishman in late September 1902, and arrived at Southampton in late October, when he was posted at Chatham. He later served in Somaliland and Dublin. In the First World War he served in Royal Corps of Signals to maintain communications in France, was mentioned in dispatches three times and was awarded the Distinguished Service Order (DSO) and the Military Cross.

Economic and astronomical career In 1902, Edgeworth's uncle, William E. Wilson, put forward his nephew for election to the Royal Astronomical Society. Edgeworth was elected the following year. At the meeting, one of his papers was read. He studied international economics during the Great Depression and wrote five books about it during the 1930s and 1940s. He also wrote about the use of turf as a fuel. Influenced by his uncle's former astronomical endeavors, he published scientific papers (at least from 1939) on the Solar System, star formation, red dwarf stars and astronomical redshifts. He said in 1938 that Pluto (discovered eight years earlier by Clyde Tombaugh) was too small to be a planet but was likely a large example of the original material of the Solar System. In the Journal of the British Astronomical Association, he published The Evolution of Our Planetary System in 1943 (the same year that he was elected to the British Astronomical Association (BAA)), with a key reference to a mass of comets existing past Neptune. He was elected to the Royal Irish Academy in 1948. In 1949, he followed his 1943 paper with The Origin and Evolution of the Solar System. He suggested that there was a huge number of small bodies at a great distance, with infrequent clustering limiting their size but the occasional inward cometary visitor. In 1950, Jan Oort published his paper in which the Oort cloud was put forward. A year after that, Gerard Kuiper presented his paper at the 50th-anniversary symposium of Yerkes Observatory. It is not known why he did not refer to Edgeworth's papers. The Edgeworth-Kuiper belt has been most frequently referred to as the Kuiper belt, which has caused a dispute:

From Steven J. Dick, in Discovery and Classification in Astronomy: Controversy and Consensus: "...others also envisioned trans-Neptunian objects beyond Pluto. As with most Americans, in this book we use the term "Kuiper Belt," demonstrating that if classes and classification systems are socially constructed... nomenclature is even more so." From Dr. Alan Stern, principal investigator of NASA's New Horizons mission to Pluto, reported in the Irish Times: "Kenneth Edgeworth probably doesn't get the credit he deserves. In 1943 and 1949 he had papers that were brilliant. He nailed it."

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Kenneth Edgeworth

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Kenneth Edgeworth claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In astronomy, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Kenneth Edgeworth before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Kenneth Edgeworth ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Kenneth Edgeworth

In research: Kenneth Edgeworth appears in astronomy research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Kenneth Edgeworth in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Kenneth Edgeworth is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1880 births, 1972 deaths, 19th-century Irish astronomers, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Kenneth Edgeworth outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Kenneth Edgeworth in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Kenneth Edgeworth means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Kenneth Edgeworth out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Kenneth Edgeworth in simple terms?

Kenneth Essex Edgeworth (26 February 1880 – 10 October 1972) was an Irish army officer, engineer, economist and independent theoretical astronomer. He was born in Street, County Westmeath.

Why does Kenneth Edgeworth matter?

Because it connects several astronomy ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Kenneth Edgeworth?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Kenneth Edgeworth.