Richardson, Lewis Fry (1881–1953)

LEWIS FRY RICHARDSON was an innovative Britsh mathematician, physicist, and psychologist who first tried to apply mathematical concepts to weather forecast. Although his method for weather forecasting was not entirely successful during his lifetime, it was rediscovered with the advent of computers and formed the basis for computer-based weather forecast. The recorded change over a given distance of temperature and wind (gradient) is named the Richardson number after him.

Lewis Fry Richardson was born into a wealthy Quaker family in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne on October 11, 1881. His mother, Catherine Fry, was the daughter of corn merchants, and his father, David Richardson, came from a family of tanners, a profession that he took up himself. Lewis was the youngest of a large family of seven children. He attended ...