Samuel Pierpont Langley (Langley Samuel Pierpont)( The American astronomer, physicist, pioneer of aeronautics.)
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Biography Samuel Pierpont Langley (Langley Samuel Pierpont)
(1834-1906) August 22, 1834 in Roxbury (pc. Mass.). In 1851 he graduated from Boston high school. In 1851-1864 he worked as an engineer and architect in Chicago and St. Louis, then an assistant at Harvard Observatory. In 1864-1865, visited several European observatories and research centers. In 1866, he taught mathematics at the Naval Academy in Annapolis. In 1867-1889 - director of Allegheny Observatory, and Professor of Physics and Astronomy, University of Pittsburgh. From 1887 - Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC. In 1890 founded the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory. Work Langley devoted astrophysics. In 1879-1881, he invented the bolometer - a device for measuring the radiation energy, the core of which is the dependence of the resistance of metals on temperature. Measured with the help of the energy of solar radiation in a wide range of wavelengths, organizing for the 1881 expedition to g.Uitni in California. In 1901, he compiled an atlas of infrared solar spectrum, determined the solar constant.
In the 1887-1906 Langley was engaged in aerodynamic research and design of aircraft. Artillery War Department bureau gave him 50 thousand. dollars, and his assistant, Charles Manly built a gasoline engine. Model in a quarter of the natural size with a reduced engine Manley flew successfully, but full-scale test apparatus, catapulted from a barge on r.Potomak and manned Manley, ended in failure. Lacking funds for further experiments, Langley has stopped work on aeronautics. Langley died in Aiken (pc. South Carolina) 27 February 1906.
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