Autobiographical sketch prepared at the request of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, ca. 1975.

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Autobiographical sketch prepared at the request of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, ca. 1975.

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/80923401

Account outlining McVittie's family history, his education, research interests, and professional appointments. McVittie discusses his parents background, their life in Smyrna, Turkey, his private education in Smyrna, the family's new life in England after the destruction of Smyrna by the Turkish army in 1922; his early interests in archaeology and star gazing; his education at Edinburgh University (MA in mathematics and scientific philosophy, 1923-1927) with the support of Sir John Cowans; the influence of Edinburgh professors Charles G. Darwin, N. Kemp Smith, and Edmund T. Whittaker; his Ph.D. studies at Cambridge University (unified field theories, 1928-30) under Arthur S. Eddington; his post-graduate research projects including unified field theories, spherically symetric solutions of Einstein's equations, cosmological investigations, classical hydrodynamics and gas dynamics, and orbits of particles in general relativity; and his appointments, particulary as head of the astronomy department at the University of Illinois (1952-1972), where he became involved in the department's instrumentation and radio astronomy initiatives funded by the Office of Naval Research. Also includes a description of McVittie's war work for the British Scientific Civil Service on observational weather data and cipher breaking operations (1939-1945); and a list of his public honors, fellowships, memberships, scientific editorships, and publications

28 pp.

American Institute of Physics, Niels Bohr Library

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SNAC Resource ID: 8254010

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