Edmond Halley was an English astronomer and mathematician who is famously known for calculating the orbit of a comet now named after him, Halley's comet. He was a supporter of Newton and studied at Oxford University in London.  At Oxford, he worked very close to the Astronomer royal, John Flamsteed where he assisted him in many projects. It was known that he had made many observations such as the occultation of mars by the moon.

 

It was speculated that Halley’s journey to the South Atlantic island of St Helena was inspired by flamsteed himself. In this trip, Halley had documented the celestial longitudes and latitudes of 341 stars and discovered a star cluster in Centaurus. Later on, he proposed a method for observing transits of mercury and of Venus across the disk of the sun in order to determine the distance of the Earth from the Sun.

In 1705 he published 'A Synopsis of the Astronomy of Comets', which describes the parabolic orbits of 24 comets that had been observed during the period of 1337 to 1698. He showed that the three historic comets of 1531, 1607, and 1682 were so similar in uniqueness that they must have been consecutive returns of the same comet, which today is now known as Halley's Comet. He had accurately predicted its return in 1758. Due to his studies, it was concluded that Halley’s Comet comes every 75 years.

He was the first to introduce to us two diving bells which would allow people to explore the deep sea. It was a device in which the atmosphere was filled by way of weighted barrels of air sent down from the surface. He had opened our understanding of trade winds, tides, cartography, and  naval navigation. In 1686 his map of the world, showing the distribution of current winds over the oceans later became the first meteorological chart to be published

Edmund Halley was a big asset to history. He was successful in his findings and was later appointed Royal Astronomer at Greenwich Observatory after the great Flamsteed had died.  His applications to science influenced a great deal to society before and in the future.

Works cited

http://library.thinkquest.org/23830/halley.htm

http://scienceworld.wolfram.com/biography/Halley.html

            images

http://www.nndb.com/people/608/000030518/EdmondHalley_big.jpg