Biography for Q 2

Kyle Violette

Period 1

13 Jan, 2012

David Rittenhouse, Biography

                Born on April 8, 1732, in Germantown Pennsylvania, David Rittenhouse was an unlikely candidate for being a great astronomer. His family was rather poor and any early education that he was going to receive would have to be self taught. Lucky for us, this did not stop the early Rittenhouse. By using a few books available to him at his home and tinkering with many of his uncle’s tools, his uncle being a maker of crafts himself, Rittenhouse was able to teach himself the basics of science and math.

`               When he was in his mid thirties, Rittenhouse was becoming acclaimed in the creation of mathematical tools, mainly scale models of the solar system.  His true masterpiece was a scale model of the solar system that could track the movements of the known planets 5000 years forwards and backwards in time. After he released his masterpiece he was in demand for the production of more of the models for uses in colleges, museums, and for the general public to see and interact with.

During these times of his fame accumulating around the 13 colonies and even in Europe, Rittenhouse got married to Eleanor Coulston on 20 February 1766, and they together had two daughters. Sadly, Eleanor died and in 1772 Rittenhouse got remarried to Hannah Jacobs.  During his elderly years he lived in Philadelphia and his health was recorded to almost never be perfect, but never very fatal as well.

                During these later years he was also able to pursue his own observations and scientific studies. He is well acclaimed for his surveying skills of many of the northeast states, including setting the boundaries between New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and Maryland. He also was developing better and finer instruments that were being put to use around the world. All of this earned him his true fame in the making of instruments, but, he was also well known for his own observatory in Philadelphia.

                Rittenhouse kept daily records of many different items including; planets, eclipses, meteors, and comets. Using the data he found and his knowledge of certain mathematical principles, Rittenhouse was able to develop methods of to track and find the positions of planets while also find a way to for calculating logarithms using arithmetical calculations. Rittenhouse also investigated many different and mostly separated topics such as the magnetic dipoles, spectra grating, and the primary causes of the illusion of reversible relief.

                Other contributions can be found in politics in the fact that he; was an avid patriot during the revolution and served on many councils during this time, served as director of the US mint from 1792-1795, and formulated the Pennsylvanian constitution in 1776.