Fraunhofer lines [SEP] named after
Fraunhofer lines
In physics and optics, the Fraunhofer lines are a set of spectral absorption lines named after the German physicist Joseph von Fraunhofer (1787–1826). The lines were originally observed as dark features (absorption lines) in the optical spectrum of the Sun.
Discovery.
In 1802, the English chemist William Hyde Wollaston was the first person to note the appearance of a number of dark features in the solar spectrum. In 1814, Fraunhofer independently rediscovered the lines and began to systematically study and measure the wavelengths where
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- Fermi's golden rule, a quantum mechanical calculation, was discovered by Paul Dirac.
- The Fermi paradox, stated by Konstantin Tsiolkovsky in 1933, long before Fermi.
- The Floyd–Warshall algorithm for finding shortest paths in a weighted graph is named after Robert Floyd and Stephen Warshall who independently published papers about it in 1962. However, Bernard Roy had previously published an equivalent algorithm in 1959.
- The Fraunhofer lines in the solar spectrum were first noted by William Hyde Wollaston twelve years before