Scott Tremaine | |
---|---|
Born | Scott Duncan Tremaine 1950 Toronto, Ontario |
Nationality | Canadian |
Citizenship | Canada |
Alma mater | McMaster University Princeton University (PhD) |
Known for | Theory of galactic dynamics |
Spouse | Marilyn Tremaine |
Scientific career | |
Fields | Astrophysics |
Institutions | |
Scott Duncan Tremaine (born 1950) is a Canadian-born astrophysicist. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of London, the Royal Society of Canada and the National Academy of Sciences. Tremaine is widely regarded as one of the world's leading astrophysicists for his contributions to the theory of Solar System and galactic dynamics. Tremaine is the namesake of asteroid 3806 Tremaine. He is credited with coining the name "Kuiper belt".
Career
He obtained a bachelor's degree at McMaster University in 1971, and a PhD from Princeton University in 1975. He further received an honorary PhD from McMaster University in 1996. He was an associate professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 1981 to 1985. He became the first director of the Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics at the University of Toronto in 1986, a position he held until the end of his ten-year term in 1996. He gained the rare distinction of "University Professor" at the University of Toronto in 1995. In 1997, he left CITA and took up a position as a professor at Princeton University, becoming chair of the Astrophysical Sciences department from 1998 to 2006.
Scott Tremaine is currently a professor at the Institute for Advanced Study, for which he left Princeton University in 2007, being replaced as department chair by David Spergel. He has been married to Prof. Marilyn Mantei Tremaine for more than two decades, an expert in human-computer interaction who is the past chair of the SIGCHI section of the Association for Computing Machinery.
Scientific accomplishments
Tremaine, along with Peter Goldreich, correctly predicted that shepherd moons created Saturn's thin F ring, as well as the thin rings of Uranus in 1979. The Saturnian moons Prometheus and Pandora were first observed in 1981 and shepherding moons were found around Uranus' rings in 1986. Tremaine cowrote the book Galactic Dynamics with James Binney, which is often regarded as the standard reference in the field and has been cited more than three thousand times in scholarly publications. Tremaine, along with collaborators at the University of Toronto, showed that short period comets originate in the Kuiper belt. Tremaine is credited with suggesting that the apparent "double nucleus" of the Andromeda Galaxy was in fact a single ring of old red stars.
Awards and honours
In 2020, he was elected a Legacy Fellow of the American Astronomical Society.
In 2013, he won the Tomalla Foundation Prize for his work on gravitational dynamics.
In 2010, he received an honorary doctorate from the University of Toronto "in recognition of his scholarly contributions to the field of astrophysics, and his administrative leadership in support of Canadian and international science".
In 2005, he won the Research Award from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.
In 2002, he was elected to membership in the National Academy of Sciences.
In 1999, Tremaine also received an honorary Doctor of Science degree from St. Mary's University.
In 1998, he won the Dirk Brouwer Award which is awarded by the Division of Dynamical Astronomy of the American Astronomical Society "in recognition of his many outstanding contributions to a wide range of dynamical problems in both solar-system and galactic dynamics."
In 1997, he was awarded the Dannie Heineman Prize for Astrophysics for "diverse and insightful applications of dynamics to planets, rings, comets, galaxies and the universe."
In 1996, he was awarded an honorary Doctor of Science award by McMaster University.
In 1994, Tremaine became a Fellow of the Royal Society of London and also of the Royal Society of Canada.
In 1990, he was awarded the Rutherford Memorial Medal in Physics by the Academies of Arts, Humanities and Sciences of Canada for "his outstanding contributions to the field to [sic] astrophysics, particularly his spectacular success in predicting the properties of planetary ring dynamics and the extraplanetary objects that control them".
In 1990, he won the C.S. Beals Award from the Canadian Astronomical Society which is awarded for outstanding research to a Canadian astronomer or an astronomer working in Canada.
In 1983, he won the Helen B. Warner Prize for Astronomy given by the American Astronomical Society in recognition of "his many outstanding contributions to a wide range of dynamical problems in both solar-system and galactic dynamics".
External links
- Scholarly Works by Scott Tremaine from the Astrophysical Data System
- Scott Tremaine's Homepage at the Institute for Advanced Study
- "Astrophysical Wonders, Part I – Solar System Astronomy – A Conversation with Scott Tremaine", Ideas Roadshow, 2015
- "Astrophysical Wonders, Part II – Galactic Astronomy – A Conversation with Scott Tremaine", Ideas Roadshow, 2015
References
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- "Scott Duncan TREMAINE". Canadian Who's Who 1997 edition on the web. University of Toronto Press.
- "Lists of Royal Society Fellows 1660–2007". London: The Royal Society. Archived from the original on 24 March 2010. Retrieved 18 July 2010.
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- "The Institute Letter". Institute for Advanced Studies. Archived from the original on 3 April 2007. Retrieved 9 April 2007.
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- "Canadian Asteroids". Royal Astronomical Society of Canada. Archived from the original on 6 January 2007. Retrieved 9 April 2007.
- "Asteroid 3806 named after eminent Canadian astrophysicist". Discovery Channel. Retrieved 9 April 2007.
- "Look, up in the Sky". University of Toronto. Archived from the original on 4 April 2007. Retrieved 9 April 2007.
- "McMaster Times – Spring 1997". Archived from the original on 29 September 2005. Retrieved 28 May 2007.
- "Asteroids (minor planets) related to UofT people". Archived from the original on 17 November 2002. Retrieved 28 May 2007.
- John Davies (2001). Beyond Pluto: Exploring the outer limits of the solar system. Cambridge University Press. p. 191.
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- "SIGCHI organizers". Archived from the original on 19 February 2007. Retrieved 30 May 2007.
- NASA/JPL/Ron Baalke. "Historical Background of Saturn's Rings". Calvin J. Hamilton. Retrieved 9 April 2007.
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- "New Clues Emerge in Mystery of Planetary Rings". The New York Times. 27 June 1989. Retrieved 9 April 2007.
- "Frequently Asked Questions About Saturn's Rings". NASA. Archived from the original on 5 November 1999. Retrieved 9 April 2007.
- ^ "Cosmologist Scott Tremaine receives two honors". Canadian Institute for Advanced Research. Archived from the original on 11 October 2007. Retrieved 9 April 2007.
- "UofT Asteroids". University of Toronto. Archived from the original on 17 November 2002. Retrieved 9 April 2007.
- Binney, J. & Tremaine, S. "Galactic Dynamics". Princeton University Press. Archived from the original on 20 April 2007. Retrieved 9 April 2007.
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- ^ "Tremaine to Receive 1997 Brouwer Award". Harvard University. Archived from the original on 9 May 2007. Retrieved 9 April 2007.
- Citations for 1987gady.book.....B from the ADS Databases. NASA's Astrophysical Data System. 1987. Bibcode:1987gady.book.....B.
- "Binney:Galactic Dynamics – Google Scholar". Retrieved 9 April 2007.
- "Where Comets Come From". Discovery Magazine. Retrieved 9 April 2007.
- KENNETH CHANG (12 September 2006). "Pluto's Exotic Playmates". The New York Times. Retrieved 9 April 2007.
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- "AAS Fellows". AAS. Retrieved 30 September 2020.
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- "RSC: The Academies of Arts, Humanities and Sciences of Canada : Rutherford Memorial Medals in Physics". The Royal Society of Canada. Archived from the original on 27 September 2007. Retrieved 9 April 2007.
- "Winners of the Canadian C.S. Beals Award". Canadian Astronomical Society. Archived from the original on 9 July 2007. Retrieved 9 April 2007.
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- 1950 births
- Living people
- Canadian astrophysicists
- 20th-century Canadian astronomers
- Fellows of the Royal Society of Canada
- Fellows of the Royal Society
- Institute for Advanced Study faculty
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology faculty
- McMaster University alumni
- Scientists from Toronto
- Princeton University alumni
- Princeton University faculty
- Academic staff of the University of Toronto
- Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences
- Winners of the Dannie Heineman Prize for Astrophysics
- Fellows of the American Astronomical Society
- 21st-century Canadian astronomers