Miers Longstreth
Miers Fisher Longstreth (March 15, 1819 - December 27, 1891) was an American merchant, physician, and astronomer,[1] best known as a founding member of the National Academy of Sciences.
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Longstreth was born in Philadelphia and received his secondary education at Clermont Academy (graduating 1833), then M.L. Hurlburt's Classical Academy. He left school to work in a hardware store, becoming a full member of the firm in 1840. As early as 1837, however, he was attending lectures at the College of Pharmacy of the University of Pennsylvania.[2] In 1856 he completed a medical degree at the university's Medical Department.[3]
By happenstance, a new Friends School was established next to his and his wife's home. The school had an astronomical observatory, which Dr. Longstreth was invited to use. He soon came to own a 5-inch aperture telescope, a transit instrument, and an astronomical clock. With these instruments, he discovered a discrepancy in the then-accepted formulas for the position of the Moon and improved upon them as "Longstreth's Lunar Formula", so-named by Benjamin Peirce and put to immediate use in the American Nautical Almanac.[3]
Longstreth was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in 1848, and was a founding member of the National Academy of Sciences in 1863.[4] Throughout his life he was a devoted member of the Society of Friends.[3]
References
[edit]- ^ "Miers Fisher Longstreth", Appleton's Cyclopedia of American Biography, New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1887-1889
- ^ Volume, National Academy of Sciences (US) Committee on the Preparation of the Semi-Centennial (1913). BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES OF THE INCORPORATORS. National Academies Press (US).
- ^ a b c "Miers Fisher Longstreth", National Academy of Sciences Biographical Memoirs
- ^ "Miers Longstreth". www.nasonline.org. Retrieved 2023-01-20.
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