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| Affiliation | Democratic-Republican |
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| Name | David Rittenhouse |
| Address |
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania , United States |
| Email | None |
| Website | None |
| Born |
April 08, 1732
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| Died | June 26, 1796
(64 years)
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| Contributor | Thomas Walker |
| Last Modifed | Thomas Walker
Jan 02, 2008 10:37am |
| Tags |
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| Info | David Rittenhouse (April 8, 1732 – June 26, 1796) was a renowned American astronomer, inventor, mathematician, surveyor, scientific instrument craftsman, and public official. Rittenhouse was a member of the American Philosophical Society and the first director of the United States Mint.
Rittenhouse was born near Germantown, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in a small village called RittenhouseTown, located along a stream called Paper Mill Run, the stream itself a tiny tributary of the Wissahickon Creek. He was self-taught and from a young age showed great ability in science and mathematics. At nineteen years old, he started a scientific instrument shop at his father's farm in West Norriton Township, Pennsylvania. His skill with instruments, particularly clocks, led him to construct two orreries, one of which is currently in the library of the University of Pennsylvania and the other is at Peyton Hall of Princeton University. Rittenhouse was one of the first to build a telescope used in the United States.
His telescope, which utilized natural spider silk to form the reticle, he used to observe and record part of the transit of Venus across the sun on 1769-06-03, as well as the planet's atmosphere.
In 1784, David Rittenhouse and surveyor Andrew Ellicott and their crew completed the unfinished survey of the Mason Dixon line to the southwest corner of Pennsylvania, five degrees of longitude from the Delaware River.
In 1785, Rittenhouse made perhaps the first diffraction grating using 50 hairs between two finely threaded screws, with an approximate spacing of about 100 lines per inch. This was roughly the same technique that Joseph von Fraunhofer used in 1821 for his wire diffraction grating.
In 1813, Rittenhouse's nephew (and American Philosophical Society member) William Barton published a biography, Memoirs of the life of David Rittenhouse. Former President of the United States Thomas Jefferson ordered six copies directly from the author.
1763-1764 Worked on the boundary survey of Pennsylvania and Maryland
1767 Granted an honorary master's degree from the College of Philadelphia (later University of Pennsylvania)
1768 Discovered the atmosphere of Venus
1769 Observed the transit of Venus
1770 Came to Philadelphia
1775 Engineer of the Committee of Safety
1779-1782 Professor of Astronomy in the University of the State of Pennsylvania, now known simply as the University of Pennsylvania
1780-1782 Vice-Provost
1782-1796 Trustee
1779-1787 Treasurer of Pennsylvania
1791-1796 President of the American Philosophical Society
1792-1795 First Director of the United States Mint
1793 He was a founder of the Democratic-Republican Societies in Philadelphia.
In 1825, one of William Penn's original squares in Philadelphia, called 'Southwest Square' (being in the southwest quadrant of the original city plan) was renamed Rittenhouse Square in David Rittenhouse's honor. Further to the west on Walnut Street, University of Pennsylvania houses its Physics and Mathematics departments in the 'DRL'--David Rittenhouse Laboratory.
His great excitement at observing the infrequently-occurring transit of Venus (for which he had prepared for a year) resulted in his fainting during the observation. In addition to the work involved in the preparations, Rittenhouse had also been ill the week before the transit. Lying on his back beneath the telescope, trained at the afternoon sun, he regained consciousness after a few minutes and continued his observations. His account of the transit, published in the Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, does not mention his fainting, though it is otherwise meticulous in its record.
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