James Hopwood Jeans was born in 1877 England, where he excelled in math and sciences. After graduating from Cambridge University in 1898, he became a professor of mathematics at both Princeton University and Cambridge University. Jeans contributed heavily to areas of astronomical physics, however many of his works were ultimately proven wrong, with the exception of a few. However, what some of his incorrect theories did was move science in the right direction. For example, Jeans was able to disprove Laplace’s theory of how the solar system formed. Laplace had determined that the solar system had formed out of a single cloud of gas, which Jeans ultimately concluded to be incorrect. However, Jean’s theory to explain how the solar system is also considered incorrect today, that the planets were all formed from materials that were scattered out by the sun into the solar system after a near-collision with a passing star. So, while Jeans’ theory was ultimately incorrect, it progressed scientific theory on the formation of the Universe.
Another theory Jeans came up with that was ultimately proven wrong was steady state cosmology, the idea that the Universe is constantly expanding, and that new matter is continuously being produced in this expansion. Obviously, this theory does not accept the concept accepted today that matter cannot be created or destroyed, and thus is no longer accepted among the scientific community.
Jean’s biggest accomplishment was his discovery of a formula to find the critical radius of an interstellar cloud in space. A Jeans length is essentially the length an interstellar cloud of dust is capable of being. Any length smaller than a Jeans length will form into a star, and any cloud too large will collapse on itself. Jeans was able to formulate an equation to represent this relationship, which would ultimately come to be known as “Jeans Instability”. This discovery gives astronomers a clear idea of the sizes of interstellar clouds, allowing them to make much more accurate measurements of their sizes.
Over the course of his life, James Jeans joined the ranks of the many great scientists who became a part of the Royal society of England. In 1906 Jeans was first inducted, and over the course of his life there he received many accolades, including the Royal Medal of the Royal Society in 1919, the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society, and was even knighted in 1928. James Jeans’ biggest accomplishment is certainly his formula for the instability of interstellar clouds, however all of his other discoveries, while ultimately not correct, were vital in the progression of scientific research in those areas. By challenging theories such as Laplace’s on the formation of the Universe, Jeans created a movement into further discovery of how our solar system was formed. Jeans lived during a time of massive scientific discovery, as the ideas surrounding the Universe were being turned upside down on a regular basis. Jeans contributed heavily to this time period of massive scientific discovery, as the world began to finally understand the functioning of the Universe around it.
