John Henry Poynting

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John Henry Poynting

John Henry Poynting (September 9,1852 – March 30,1914) was an English physicist. He was a professor of physics at Mason Science College (now the University of Birmingham) from 1880 until his death.

He was the developer and eponym of the Poynting vector, which describes the direction and magnitude of electromagnetic energy flow and is used in the Poynting theorem, a statement about energy conservation for electric and magnetic fields. This work was first published in 1884. He performed a measurement of Newton's gravitational constant by innovative means during 1893. In 1903 he was the first to realise that the Sun's radiation can draw in small particles towards it. It was later coined the Poynting-Robertson effect.

In the year 1884 he analysed the futures exchange prices of commodities using statistical mathematics.

Craters on Mars and the Moon are named in his honour, as is the Physics department at the University of Birmingham.

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