Lewis Fry Richardson, FRS (11 October 1881 – 30 September 1953) was an English mathematician, physicist, meteorologist, psychologist, and pacifist who pioneered modern mathematical techniques of weather forecasting, and the application of similar techniques to studying the causes of wars and how to prevent them. He is also noted for his pioneering work concerning fractals and a method for solving a system of linear equations known as modified Richardson iteration.
Early life
Lewis Fry Richardson was the youngest of seven children born to Catherine Fry (1838–1919) and David Richardson (1835–1913). They were a prosperous Quaker family, David Richardson operating a successful tanning and leather-manufacturing business.
At age 12 he was sent to a Quaker boarding school, Bootham School in York, where he received an education in science, which stimulated an active interest in natural history. In 1898 he went on to Durham College of Science (a college of Durham University) where he took courses in mathematical physics, chemistry, botany, and zoology. He proceeded in 1900 to King's College, Cambridge, where he was taught physics in the natural sciences tripos by (among others) J. J. Thomson and graduated with a first-class degree in 1903. At age 47 he received a doctorate in mathematical psychology from the University of London.
Career
Richardson's working life represented his eclectic interests: National Physical Laboratory (1903–1904). University College Aberystwyth (1905–1906). Chemist, National Peat Industries (1906–1907). National Physical Laboratory (1907–1909). Manager of the physical and chemical laboratory, Sunbeam Lamp Company (1909–1912). Manchester College of Technology (1912–1913). Meteorological Office – as superintendent of Eskdalemuir Observatory (1913–1916). Friends Ambulance Unit in France (1916–1919). Meteorological Office at Benson, Oxfordshire (1919–1920). Head of the Physics Department at Westminster Training College (1920–1929). Principal, Paisley Technical College, now part of the University of the West of Scotland (1929–1940).
In 1926, he was elected to the Fellowship of the Royal Society.
Pacifism
Richardson's Quaker beliefs entailed an ardent pacifism that exempted him from military service during World War I as a conscientious objector, though this subsequently disqualified him from having any academic post. Richardson worked from 1916 to 1919 for the Friends' Ambulance Unit attached to the 16th French Infantry Division. After the war, he rejoined the Meteorological Office but was compelled to resign on grounds of conscience when it was amalgamated into the Air Ministry in 1920. He subsequently pursued a career on the fringes of the academic world before retiring in 1940 to research his own ideas. His pacifism had direct consequences on his research interests. According to Thomas Körner, the discovery that his meteorological work was of value to chemical weapons designers caused him to abandon all his efforts in this field, and destroy findings that he had yet to publish.
Weather forecasting
Richardson's interest in meteorology led him to propose a scheme for weather forecasting by solution of differential equations, the method used nowadays, though when he published Weather Prediction by Numerical Process in 1922, suitable fast computing was unavailable. He described his ideas thus: