Scott Forbush

Scott Ellsworth Forbush (April 10, 1904 – April 4, 1984) was an American astronomer, physicist and geophysicist who is recognized as having laid the observational foundations for many of the central features of solar-interplanetary-terrestrial physics, which at the time was an underdeveloped field of study. In 1937 Forbush discovered the Forbush Effect: an occasional decrease in the intensity of cosmic rays as observed on Earth that is caused by the solar wind and its interaction with the magnetosphere. Scott conducted most of his research during his career at the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism (DTM) of the Carnegie Institution of Washington where he was appointed chairman of a section on theoretical geophysics in 1957. Forbush used statistical methods in analyses of magnetic storms, solar activity, rotation of the Earth, and the rotation of the sun, and the correlation of this geophysical and solar phenomena with temporal variations of cosmic-ray intensity.

Scott was widowed once and married twice, the first time to Clara Lundell, a concert pianist who died in 1967, and for the second time in June 1970, 14 years before his death, to Julie Daves, a science writer and watercolor artist. Scott died in 1984 in Charlottesville, Virginia, having suffered from pneumonia. He was survived by his wife Julie and his sister Louise Boyd of Hudson, Ohio.