Lewis Fry Richardson

Lewis Fry Richardson was born October 11, 1881, Newcastle upon Tyne, Northumberland, Eng.—died Sept. 30, 1953, Kilmun, Argyll, Scot. Lewis Fry Richardson was the youngest of seven children. He went to Newcastle Preparatory School, and his favorite subject was Euclid. In 1894, Lewis was sent to Bootham in York, a school for the sons of wealthy Quakers. Lewis then studied at Durham College of Science. He completed his studies at Cambridge University with a First Class degree in the Natural Science Tripos in 1903. Other meteorologist of Lewis’s time made weather predictions based off historical schemes. Lewis however set out to calculate the weather. He made his first forecast in 1922. He built a mathematical model of the Earth’s atmosphere based on physical rules. He wrote mathematical equations for quantities like the change in air pressure in relation to winds. He would then input pressure, wind velocity, temperature and other variables. His experiment failed. Lewis realized his failure was because he didn't take into account turbulence. Turbulence knocked the air out of predictable paths by sending eddies of air up, down or sideways. After further research he realized the turbulence was caused by the ratio of heat energy to wind energy. Although his research on turbulence was considered a success, his forecasting method was considered a failure. That was until technology capable of quickly doing his complex equations was invented. His numerical process became the standard for forecasting. Today his method is the basis for weather forecasts and climate modeling.