Scott Forbush

Who was Scott Forbush?

Scott Ellsworth Forbush was an American astronomer, physicist and geophysicist who is recognized as having laid the observational foundations for many of the central features of solar-interplanetary-terrestrial physics, which at the time was an underdeveloped field of study. The Forbush Effect, which in geophysics is an occasional decrease in the intensity of cosmic rays as observed on Earth, and is attributed to magnetic effects produced by solar flares, was named after him for his 1937 discovery. Scott conducted most of his research during his career at the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism of the Carnegie Institution of Washington where he was appointed chairman of a section on theoretical geophysics in 1957. This research specialized in the statistically sophisticated analysis of phenomena such as magnetic storms, solar activity, rotation of the Earth, and the rotation of the sun, and the correlation of this geophysical and solar phenomena with temporal variations of cosmic-ray intensity.

Scott was widowed once and married twice, the first time to Clara Lundell, concert pianist who passed in 1967, and for the second time in June 1970, 14 years before his death, to Julie Daves, a science writer and watercolor artist. Scott passed in 1984 in Charlottesville, Virginia having suffered from pneumonia. He was survived by his wife Julie and his sister Louise Boyd of Hudson, Ohio.