Daniel Kirkwood

After teaching there for five years, he became Principal of the Lancaster High School in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and after another five years he moved on to become Principal of the Pottsville Academy in Pottsville, Pennsylvania. In 1851, he was elected as a member to the American Philosophical Society. The same year he became Professor of Mathematics at Delaware College and in 1856 Professor of Mathematics at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana, where he stayed until his retirement in 1886, with the exception of two years, 1865–1867, at Jefferson College in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania. Kirkwood's most significant contribution came from his study of asteroid orbits. When arranging the then-growing number of discovered asteroids by their distance from the Sun, he noted several gaps, now named Kirkwood gaps in his honor, and associated these gaps with orbital resonances with the orbit of Jupiter. Further, Kirkwood also suggested a similar dynamic was responsible for Cassini Division in Saturn's rings, as the result of a resonance with one of Saturn's moons. In the same paper, he was the first to correctly posit that the material in meteor showers is cometary debris. Kirkwood also identified a pattern relating the distances of the planets to their rotation periods, which was called Kirkwood's Law. This discovery earned Kirkwood an international reputation among astronomers; he was dubbed "the American Kepler" by Sears Cook Walker, who claimed that Kirkwood's Law proved the widely held Solar Nebula Theory. The "Law" has since become discredited as new measurements of planetary rotation periods have shown that the pattern doesn't hold. In 1891, at age 77, he became a lecturer in astronomy at Stanford University. He died in Riverside, California, in 1895. Altogether he wrote 129 publications, including three books. The asteroid was named 1578 Kirkwood in his honor and so was the lunar impact crater Kirkwood, as well as Indiana University's Kirkwood Observatory. He is buried in the Rose Hill Cemetery in Bloomington, Indiana, where Kirkwood Avenue is named for him. Kirkwood was a cousin of Iowa governor Samuel Jordan Kirkwood who became United States Secretary of the Interior under President James A. Garfield and President Chester A.

• Name — Daniel Kirkwood • Born — 27 September 1814 • Birthplace — Harford County, Maryland • Died — 11 June 1895 • Place of death — Riverside, California • Field — astronomy, mathematics • Workplaces — University of Delaware Indiana University Jefferson College Stanford University • Education — York County Academy, York, PA • Known for — Discovery of the Kirkwood gaps

Daniel Kirkwood worked in astronomy. He was employed by Indiana University Bloomington and University of Delaware. He belonged to American Philosophical Society.

Daniel Kirkwood is recorded as astronomer, mathematician, writer and university teacher.