Arthur Thomas Doodson
| Arthur Thomas Doodson | |
|---|---|
| Born |
31 March 1890 Boothstown Salford, Greater Manchester |
| Died | 10 January 1968 (aged 77) |
| Alma mater | University of Liverpool |
| Known for | Doodson numbers |
| Notable awards | Fellow of the Royal Society (1933) |
Dr. Arthur Thomas Doodson (31 March 1890 – 10 January 1968) was a British oceanographer.
He was born at Boothstown, Salford, the son of cotton-mill manager Thomas Doodson. He was educated at Rochdale secondary school and then in 1908 entered the University of Liverpool, graduating in both chemistry (1911) and mathematics (1912). He was profoundly deaf and found it difficult to get a job but started with Ferranti in Manchester as a meter tester. During World War I he worked on the calculation of shell trajectories.
In 1919 he moved to Liverpool to work on tidal analysis and became in 1929 the Associate Director of Liverpool Observatory and Tidal Institute. He then spent much of his life developing the analysis of tidal motions mainly in the oceans but also in lakes, and was the first to devise methods for shallow water as in estuaries. Tide height and current tables are of great importance to navigators, but the detailed motions are complex. The thorough analysis at which he excelled became the international standard for the study of tides and the production of tables through the method of determination of Harmonic Elements by Least-Square fitting to data observed at each place of interest. That is, by proper association of the astronomical phases, observations made at one time can enable predictions decades away with different astronomical phases.
Doodson published a major work on tidal analysis in 1921. This was the first development of the tide generating potential (TGP) to be carried out in harmonic form: Doodson distinguished 388 tidal frequencies. Doodson's analysis of 1921 was based on the then-latest lunar theory of E W Brown. Doodson devised a practical system for specifying the different harmonic components of the tide-generating potential, see below for the Doodson Numbers.
Doodson also became involved in the design of tide-predicting machines, of which a widely used example was the "Doodson-Légé TPM".
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