Keystone,
December
CO– May,
2001 2010
John Allen “Jack” Eddy
(March 25, 1931 – June 10, 2009)
1930’s to 1950’s
1960’s
1970’s
1980’s and 1990’s
2000 and BEYOND
Robert Cahalan, Page 1
Keystone,
December
CO– May,
2001 2010
1930’s to 1950’s
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2nd Son of a Nebraska Farmer, and
a County Schoolteacher
»  Pawnee City (pop 1600)
»  Father managed a coop farm
store, where Jack worked until
entering high school.
First in family to complete college,
Naval Academy scholarship
1953-57:
»  Learned celestial navigation
»  4 years at Sea on aircraft
carrier and destroyer
»  Navigator in Persian Gulf and
Atlantic Fleet
Fall 1957 : first student in AstroGeophysics at U. Colorado
Robert Cahalan, Page 2
Keystone,
December
CO– May,
2001 2010
1960’s
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1961 Ph.D. thesis “The Stratospheric
Solar Aureole”
»  With Princeton Prof. Martin
Schwarzchild
»  “..from 0.37 to 0.79 micron at a
scattering angle of 2.4°, … from
40,000 to 80,000 feet, … particle
size distribution .. becoming a
steeper function of particle radius
at higher altitudes.”
Infrared spectroscopy, and teaching,
often using historical examples,
including history of Native American
astronomy.
Robert Cahalan, Page 3
Keystone,
December
CO– May,
2001 2010
1970’s
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1973: Laid off from HAO, due to budget cutbacks and poor
performance reviews.
Hired by NASA and National Geographic Society to
research a book on Skylab.
“The Maunder Minimum,” June 1976 cover of Science
»  “The reign of Louis XIV seems to have been a time of
real anomaly in the behavior of the Sun.”
Robert Cahalan, Page 4
Keystone,
December
CO– May,
2001 2010
1980’s and 1990’s
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Over 50 International Lectures
per year.
Research in the great libraries.
(cf Owen Gingrich’s story of
libraries in “The Book Nobody
Ever Read”)
1987: National Academy of
Sciences medal for
“demonstration of the existence
and nature of solar variations of
long term, and the consequences
of these variations for climate
and for mankind.”
1999 phone interview: Jack said
Eugene Parker exposed him to
the work of Maunder.
Robert Cahalan, Page 5
Keystone,
December
CO– May,
2001 2010
2000 and later
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EDDY: “And, you know, the temptation
was to think that it might someday be
called the "Eddy Minimum": that is, to call
it nothing in the hope that someone else
would do that. But being from Nebraska, I
could never do anything like that. I also
knew I wasn't the first to find it, and it
wasn't really mine. I think I did quite a bit
for Maunder with that name. Particularly
because he also got the idea from
somebody else. He got it from Sporer who
was a German astronomer. “
“It was one more defeat in our long and
losing battle to keep the Sun perfect, or, if
not perfect, constant, and if inconstant,
regular. Why we think the Sun should be
any of these when other stars are not is
more a question for social than for
physical science.”
The Sun, the Earth and Near-Earth Space:
A Guide to the Sun-Earth System; in
press, NASA.
Robert Cahalan, Page 6
Keystone,
December
CO– May,
2001 2010
2010
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Jack is survived by his wife,
Barbara, 4 children, and 4
grandchildren.
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A petition has been submitted to
the Solar Physics Division of the
American Astonomical Society to
name the next major minimum
“The Eddy Minimum.”
Robert Cahalan, Page 7
Keystone,
December
CO– May,
2001 2010
Holocene lasted 10000 years. Will the Anthropocene?
Bristlecone Pine
Robert Cahalan, Page 8