othmeralia: Found in a bookIn this latest installment of Found in a book, we recently discovered a n
othmeralia: Found in a bookIn this latest installment of Found in a book, we recently discovered a newspaper page placed in a copy of Reminiscences of an astronomer (1903) by Simon Newcomb.This newspaper clipping is a real gem! It’s about Mrs. Elizabeth Brown Davis (1863-1917), an astronomical mathematician. After some research, and reading this newspaper page, we discovered that Davis graduated with a B.S. from Columbian University (now George Washington University) in D.C. and later did her post-graduate work at Johns Hopkins University in mathematics. This work was done with special permission from faculty and allowed her to study freely, though she was unable to graduate with a degree due to her being a woman.Davis became a computer in the Nautical Almanac Office at the U.S. Naval Observatory and assisted in the preparation of Simon Newcomb’s (hey, that’s where the connection is!) Tables of the Sun and Planets. She was a member of the American Mathematical Society, Circolo Matematico di Palermo, and the Auxiliary Board of Regents of Trinity College. Aside from her work with Newcomb and the NAO, she also completed work on comet orbits and proof-read textbooks on mathematics. Davis died in April of 1917. -- source link