Sir (Franz) Arthur (Friedrich ) Schuster FRS (September 12 1851 - October 17 1934) was a versatile
physicist known for his work in spectroscopy, electrochemistry, optics, X-radiography and the
application of harmonic analysis to physics. He contributed enormously to making the University of Manchester a centre for the study of physics.
Arthur Schuster was born in Frankfurt am Main, Germany into a family of merchants and
bankers. Following their marriage in 1849, his parents had converted from Judaism to Christianity and their children were brought
up in that faith. In 1869, his father moved to Manchester where the family textile business was based. Arthur, who had been to
school in Frankfurt and was studying in Geneva, joined his parents in 1870 and he and the other
children became British citizens in 1875.
From his childhood, Schuster had been interested in science and after working for a year for Schuster Brothers he persuaded
his father to let him study at Owens College. He studied mathematics
under Thomas Barker and physics under Balfour Stewart, and began research with
Henry Roscoe on the spectra of hydrogen and nitrogen. He spent a year with
Gustav Kirchhoff at the University of Heidelberg, and having gained his PhD, returned to Owens as an
unpaid demonstrator in physics. Schuster later used his family's wealth to buy material and equipment and to endow readerships in
mathematical physics at Manchester and meteorology at Cambridge. He also
contributed to the Royal Society and the International Union for Co-operation in Solar
Research.
After a further period of study in Germany with Wilhelm Eduard Weber and
Hermann von Helmholtz, he returned to England, where his knowledge of spectrum
analysis led to him being appointed to lead an expedition to Siam, to photograph the coronal spectrum during the total solar
eclipse of 6 April 1875. This was an important appointment for
such a junior scientist.
On his return to Manchester, he began research on electricity and then went on to spend five years at the Cavendish Laboratory of the University of Cambridge. His status there was quite unofficial; he was
neither a student nor a fellow. He worked with Maxwell and with Rayleigh. In 1881 he was appointed to the Beyer Chair of Applied Mathematics at Owens, by now one of the colleges of the new
Victoria University. He succeeded his teacher Balfour Stewart as professor of physics in 1888. This appointment gave him the
opportunity to establish a large, active teaching and research department. In 1900 a new laboratory, for which he had fought and
which he had designed, was officially opened. It was the fourth largest in the world. The laboratory quickly became a serious
rival to the Cavendish; see Manchester Science Hall of Fame. Much of
this later fame was associated with Ernest Rutherford who succeeded Schuster as
Langworthy Professor in 1907. Schuster resigned from the chair, partly for health reasons and partly to promote the cause of
international science. He ensured that Rutherford would succeed him.
Schuster is perhaps most widely remembered for his periodogram analysis, a technique which was long the main practical tool
for identifying statistically important frequencies present in a time series of observations. He first used this form of harmonic
analysis in 1897 to disprove C. G. Knott's claim of periodicity in earthquake
occurrences. He went on to apply the technique to analysing sunspot activity. This was an old
interest. In 1875 Stewart's friend and Roscoe's cousin, the economist Jevons,
reported, "Mr. A Schuster of Owens College has ingeniously pointed out that the periods of good vintage in Western Europe have
occurred at intervals somewhat approximating to eleven years, the average length of the principal sun-spot cycle."
Schuster is credited by Chandrasekhar to have given a fresh start to the
radiative transfer problem. Schuster formulated in 1905 a problem in radiative
transfer in an attempt to explain the appearance of absorption and emission lines in stellar spectra.
Following the outbreak of World War I in 1914, the Schuster family was subjected to
anti-German prejudice in the press and, in Arthur's case, in some quarters of the Royal Society. His brother Sir Felix Schuster
had to issue a statement pointing out the family's loyalty to Britain and that they all had sons serving in the British army. On
the day Arthur gave his presidential address to the 1915 British Association meeting, he learned that his son had been
wounded.
Schuster was elected to the Royal Society in 1879, knighted in 1920 and his other honours include doctorates from the
universities of Geneva (1909), St Andrews (1911), and Oxford (1917)and the award of the Royal, Rumford and Copley
medals of the Royal Society (1893, 1926 and 1931). Sir Arthur Schuster was regarded by his contemporaries as a mathematical
physicist of exceptional ability but also as a capable administrator and teacher, and an advocate for the role of science in
education and industry. Schuster served as secretary of the Royal Society and was elected vice-president (1919–20) and foreign
secretary (1920–24). He also served as secretary of the International Research Council (1919–28)
and on the management committees for the Meteorological Office (1905–32) and National Physical Laboratory (1899–1902, 1920–25).
Life
- Arthur Schuster Biographical Fragments London; Macmillan (1932).
An attractive collection of reminiscences about Schuster's education and his expeditions with recollections of the scientists
he knew.
- Richard J. Howarth, ‘Schuster, Sir Arthur (1851-1934)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University
Press, 2004. Accessed 31 August 2005.
External links
Beginning in 1871 Schuster contributed many articles to the Royal Society journals. These articles are available online at
JSTOR and at Gallica. See for example
his first paper to use the technique he later called the periodogram.
and his later paper on sunspots
There is a photograph of Schuster at
and many more (as well as the X ray photographs he took) at
The story of Schuster and the medical use of X-rays is told at
The position of Schuster at the Cavendish is described in
Schuster's papers are held by the University of Manchester
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