Elias Loomis

Elias Loomis (August 7, 1811 – August 15, 1889) was an American mathematician. He served as a professor of mathematics and natural philosophy at Western Reserve College (now Case Western Reserve University), the University of the City of New York and Yale University. During his tenure at Western Reserve College in 1838, he established the Loomis Observatory, currently the second oldest observatory in the United States.

Loomis was born in Willington, Connecticut in 1811. He graduated at Yale College in 1830, was a tutor there for three years (1833–36), and then spent the next year in scientific investigation in Paris. On his return, Loomis served as professor of mathematics and natural philosophy for eight years (1836–44) at Western Reserve College in Hudson, Ohio, now Case Western Reserve University. During his tenure, he opened up the Loomis Observatory in 1838, currently the second oldest observatory in the United States. From 1844 to 1860 he held the professorship of natural philosophy and mathematics in the University of the City of New York, and in the latter year became professor of natural philosophy in Yale. Professor Loomis published (besides many papers in the American Journal of Science and in the Transactions of the American Philosophical Society) many textbooks on mathematics, including Analytical Geometry and of the Differential and Integral Calculus, published in 1835.

In 1859 Alexander Wylie, assistant director of London Missionary Press in Shanghai, in cooperation with fellow Chinese scholar Li Shanlan, translated Elias Loomis's book on Geometry, Differential and Integral Calculus into Chinese. The Chinese text was subsequently translated twice by Japanese scholars into Japanese and published in Japan. Loomis's writings thus played an important role in the transfer of analytical mathematical knowledge to the Far East.

In his memoir of Loomis, Hubert Anson Newton summarized Loomis's work on the historical Geomagnetic Storm of 1859.

Closely connected with terrestrial magnetism, and to be considered with it, is the Aurora Borealis. In the week that covered the end of August and the beginning of September, 1859, there occurred an exceedingly brilliant display of the Northern Lights. Believing that an exhaustive discussion of a single aurora promised to do more for the promotion of science than an imperfect study of an indefinite number of them, Professor Loomis undertook at once to collect and to collate accounts of this display. A large number of such accounts were secured from North America, from Europe, from Asia, and from places in the Southern Hemisphere; especially all the reports from the Smithsonian observers and correspondents, were placed in his hands by the Secretary, Professor Henry.

These observations and the discussions of them were given to the public during the following two years, in a series of nine papers in the American Journal of Science.

Few, if any, displays on record were as remarkable as was this one for brilliancy or for geographical extent. Certainly about no aurora have there been collected so many facts. The display continued for a week. The luminous region entirely encircled the North Pole of the earth. It extended on this continent on the 2d of September as far south, as Cuba, and to an unknown distance to the north. In altitude the bases of the columns of light were about fifty miles above the earth's surface, and the streamers shot up at times to a height of five hundred miles. Thus over a broad belt on both continents this large region above the lower atmosphere was filled with masses of luminous material. A display similar to this, and possibly of equal brilliancy, was at the same time witnessed in the Southern Hemisphere.

The nine papers were mainly devoted to the statements of observers. Professor Loomis, however, went on to collect facts about other auroras, and to make inductions from the whole of the material thus brought together. He showed that there was good reason for believing that not only was this display represented by a corresponding one in the Southern Hemisphere, but that all remarkable displays in either hemisphere are accompanied by corresponding ones in the other.