Link to sign the petition (don’t use handles please)
Jack Eddy was a solar scientist who discovered the sunspot period known as “Maunder Minimum” in the 1970’s, and despite intense academic pressure of the consensus then, argued that this demonstrated that our sun was not constant, but indeed a slightly variable star.
A humble man, he didn’t even name his discovery after himself as some scientists are known to do.
Jack Eddy recently passed away, as announced on WUWT here
Fellow solar astronomer and friend Dr. Leif Svalgaard announced his plan to present this idea formally in comments there:
At the Solar Physics Division [of the American Astronomical Society] next week in Boulder, CO, I will formally request that if a significant solar minimum materializes that it be called the “Eddy Minimum”
If you support this idea, please sign the petition so that Leif can present it with his formal request.
Also dear readers, please link this post and/or the petition to the science (and other) blogs you frequent on a regular basis. Thanks – Anthony
UPDATE: We have 50 signatures in the first half hour. Also just an FYI, don’t sign using a “handle”, or I’ll have to delete the entry as invalid. I’ll provide the complete list in a few days, with names only, no emails. Also if you want to leave an affiliation or title, use the “comments” window of the petition. Thanks – Anthony
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
I think this is a great idea.
But with another day with absolutely no sunspots being given a 12, and several days recently when there was no spots, but yet still got a number, I’m not sure the scientist that measure this stuff will allow a minimum.
Done — just added this simple layman’s name to the list.
Shouldn’t it be the ‘Gore Effect Minimum’ ?
Leif’s petition asks “that if a significant solar minimum materializes that it be called the “Eddy Minimum”.”
Let’s be patient and ensure that a minimum named after Jack Eddy is significant and not a derisory dimple soon to be forgotten.
If a significant minimum does not materialize then perhaps some other means can be found to honour his name.
Done! Pleasure to do so.
Alan I think Gore has had enough of an effect, let’s hope he is resigned to but a footnote in the annals of history.
Ummm… I think my last comment came out a little meaner then I meant it, sorry if it seems rude.
If minima cause famine, shortened growing seasons, extreme cold and other problems, I would suggest naming the unnamed Modern Maxima after him.
“No need to honour Gore and Hansen further, I’ve already done it by labeling the smallest room in my humble abode the “Gore-Hansen Suite”.
Me too. It used to be known as the excess carbon sequestration module, but now its just the Gore-Hansen Nobelator.
Innocentious (17:19:00) : “…the annals of history.”
Shouldn’t that be [snip]
Signed it, and I will update my Deep Solar Minimum pages to unofficially ascribe the current minimum to Eddy.
David (16:05:00) :
I think this is a great idea.
But with another day with absolutely no sunspots being given a 12, and several days recently when there was no spots, but yet still got a number, I’m not sure the scientist that measure this stuff will allow a minimum.
I agree with both sentiments, this might end up being named the Windex maximum.
I just added the links to Google Scholar and Google Books on Dr. Eddy’s Wikipedia Page External Links section.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Eddy#External_links
Searches were done using “J A Eddy” because that is how Dr. Eddy’s papers are signed. I attempted to limit the searches to the physical sciences but quickly discovered that Dr. Eddy published in a number of disciplines. There are a few false hits but not many.
I added the “Infobox Scientist” macro to the Wikipedia page but need a picture of Dr. Eddy.
The best photograph of Dr. Eddy is the one Anthony used but we will need permission to add it Wikipedia:
http://www.aip.org/history/climate/eddy1.htm
http://www.aip.org/history/climate/images/eddy_photo.jpg
Could someone at the AIP put it into Wikimedia public domain or can we get a picture from the family?
Has anyone been able to find an official obituary?
Here is what the Jack Eddy Wikipedia page looks like now:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Eddy
Mike
Wiki Pedded … William M. Connelly is an idiot period exclamation mark. I’ve tangled with him over that other person I have a fondness for that saw variation in the sun when I tried to modify their ridiculous entry. I managed to put a bit of stuff about the West Antarctic that he didn’t notice for 6 months. Wiki is really a social consensus sandbox with granny spies trained by Mao to keep you seeing inward to the right dogma.
I’m fine with ‘Eddy Minimum’. It appears he has more universal appeal among those actively pursuing these matters. I will sign the petition.
My other choices were Landscheidt or Jose Minimum … but I defer on this issue to Lief 😉
Not to be boring or anything, but solar climatic events are generally named after the person who either predicted them (in the future) or described them (from the past). In that sense, Jack Eddy fails to qualify for the next solar minimum as he did not predict it.
That honour should go to the person who did, which was Theodor Landscheidt, IF the predicted collapse of the solar cycle does occur (and we won’t know for sure until 2040).
At the moment we don’t have a single theory about what will happen for the next solar cycle, and every prediction made so far that has been testable (ie those who predicted the beginning of the next cycle) has been wrong. We don’t know if Leif Svalgaard’s hypothesis is right or wrong until 2013 or 2014, and we won’t know if Svalgaard got lucky until after the maximum of Solar Cycle 25 which will be in the middle of the 2020s.
I think Jack Eddy could be honoured in other ways without resorting to online petitions to name spceulative future events.
Done ! Thanks again .
I am amazed, after reading about his life, he was able to totally revive his career with one paper 20 years after earning his PhD. Prior to that his career seemed to be circling the drain due to his stubborn insistence on doing interdisciplinary work that offended the established orthodoxy of scientific specialization. His work is an example about how one scientist writing one paper can upset an entire orthodoxy of accepted truth and ‘scientific consensus’ really is meaningless when the consensus is wrong.
OK, went and done it. Will abandon my previous favorite sons.
Anyway, it’s looking as of the favorite sun candidate just may have the last word.
I found Dr. Eddy’s PHD Thesis:
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1962PhDT………2E
The Stratospheric Solar Aureole.
Eddy, John Allen
Thesis (PH.D.)–UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO AT BOULDER, 1962.Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 23-03, page: 0793.
Should we be using Jack Eddy or John Allen Eddy in his Wikipedia write-up? I am trying to load all of the papers found in Google Scholar into a matrix format.
With the title of the thesis from Google I found the thesis abstract:
http://oai.dtic.mil/oai/oai?verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=html&identifier=AD0272576
Accession Number : AD0272576
Title : THE STRATOSPHERIC SOLAR AUREOLE
Abstract : The theory of light scattering by small particles is summarized to develop the formulae needed to interpret solar aureole data obtained in balloon flights at stratospheric altitudes. Included are the Rayleihg law for small particles, the Chandrasekhar solution of the planetary scattering problem, and the Mie theory for large particle scattering. Observations cover the wavelength range from 0.37 to 0.79 micron at the scattering angle 2.4 degrees, and over the altitude range from 42,000 ft. to 80,000 ft. The findings suggest that the form of the particle size distribution chang s with altitude, becoming a steeper function of particle radius at higher altitudes.
We can add this to the Wikipedia page.
Mike
Hans Erren (14:12:52) :
I thought we agreed already on “Landscheidt Minimum”, as he was the first to predict it.
REPLY: We had a poll, here:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/04/22/wuwt-poll-what-should-we-call-the-current-solar-minimum/
“Svalgaard Minimum” won with 1220 votes, 49%. Leif has decided to present “The Eddy Minimum” at the next conference, even though his name was the clear winner. Thus I think we should honor and support his request. – Anthony
Jack Eddy was no doubt a great man, but I agree with Hans & John A. The previous poll was merely for comic relief and did not include all the participants that deserve naming rights including Landscheidt and Jose, and although Leif is a reputable solar physicist, he has never predicted a solar grand minimum and should not be included.
My recollection of the pole had an overwhelming mention of Landscheidt, but no ability to vote for him.
Its great to honor the man but I think WUWT has gone too far this time.
I especially like the interdisciplinary aspect of Jack Eddy. Too much specialization prevents any one person from being able to see the “bigger picture”. This is another example of why transparency is vital to science. So the connections can be made. My own analogy would be playing music. For many years I learned to “break music apart” by focusing on the individual instruments. This was great when learning a song by ear, but rendered me unable to listen to piece of music without breaking it apart. I had to take a step back and just “hear the music”. In the greatest pieces of music, the sum is far greater than the individual parts. I think much of science today is not listening to the whole “piece of music”. My humble opinion only.
Done. Could someone remind me of the reasoning behind foreseeing a significant solar minimum in the cycles ahead ? Thanks
Paul R (18:18:17) :
day Gr# Wolf#
06/01, 0.8, 16
06/02, 0.8, 17
06/03, 0.8, 15
06/04, 0.8, 13
06/05, 0.3, 5
06/06, 0.0, 0
06/07, 0.0, 0
06/08, 0.7, 8
06/09, 0.7, 8
06/10, 0.0, 0
06/11, 0.0, 0
06/12, 0.0, 0
Simply zero out the days with Group # less than .5, and you toss the pores out with the bathwater. If the “Officials” can’t do the math, let the amatuers show them how it’s done.
Adam from Kansas (13:46:25) :
Does it seem to you the sun doesn’t feel as intense outside as in
previous years. . .
I’ve noticed that as well. Even on occasional ‘hot’ days doesn’t seem to be burning the way it used to! Psychological?
David UK
Sorry, but I still go with ‘Gore Minimum’ – just to rub it in if the temp dips to coincide. Cooling Deniers wouldn’t be able to miss the point.