Remembering John Brown

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[http://www.astro.gla.ac.uk/?p=5149 John Brown] passed away unexpectedly on 16 November 2019, a great sadness to all who knew him. His many contributions to solar physics, for instance the thick target model of flare phenomena, were highly influential and we were prompted to think about some of the big themes of his research career. In this nugget we look at one of those big themes, inverse problems in astrophysics. This particular topic spans the whole of John's research career and combines a technical side with a more philosophical approach to the character of data and the limits on what one can deduce from them.
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[http://www.astro.gla.ac.uk/?p=5149 John Brown] passed away unexpectedly on 16 November 2019, a great sadness to all who knew him. His many contributions to solar physics were highly influential and we were prompted to think about some of the big themes of his research career. In this nugget we look at one of those big themes, inverse problems in astrophysics. This particular topic spans the whole of John's research career and combines a technical side with a more philosophical approach to the character of data and the limits on what one can deduce from them.
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[https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1971SoPh...18..489B/abstract John's first paper] was published in 1971. As of 22 November 2019, [https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/ ADS] says it has been cited 889 times. It introduced several ideas that became key to the study of flares and their X-radiation. A previous nugget dealt with the [http://sprg.ssl.berkeley.edu/~tohban/wiki/index.php/John_Brown_and_the_thick-target_model thick target model]. Another big new idea was the possibility of "inverting" observed X-ray spectra to deduce the energy distribution of the emitting electrons. Writing <math>J(\epsilon)</math>
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[https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1971SoPh...18..489B/abstract John's first paper] was published in 1971. As of 22 November 2019, [https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/ ADS] says it has been cited 889 times. It introduced several ideas that became key to the study of flares and their X-radiation. A previous nugget dealt with the [http://sprg.ssl.berkeley.edu/~tohban/wiki/index.php/John_Brown_and_the_thick-target_model thick target model]. Another big new idea was the possibility of "inverting" observed X-ray spectra to deduce the energy distribution of the emitting electrons. Write ''J(&epsilon;)'' for the observed energy flux at photon energy ''&epsilon;'' (erg keV<sup>-1</sup> cm<sup>-2</sup> s<sup>-1</sup>).
<math>
<math>
F(\epsilon)  =  \int_\epsilon^\infty F(E) \frac{\mathrm{d}\sigma}{\mathrm{d}\epsilon}(E,\epsilon) \mathrm{d}E  
F(\epsilon)  =  \int_\epsilon^\infty F(E) \frac{\mathrm{d}\sigma}{\mathrm{d}\epsilon}(E,\epsilon) \mathrm{d}E  
</math>
</math>

Revision as of 10:49, 30 December 2019

John C Brown (1947-2019)

John Brown passed away unexpectedly on 16 November 2019, a great sadness to all who knew him. His many contributions to solar physics were highly influential and we were prompted to think about some of the big themes of his research career. In this nugget we look at one of those big themes, inverse problems in astrophysics. This particular topic spans the whole of John's research career and combines a technical side with a more philosophical approach to the character of data and the limits on what one can deduce from them.


Brown(1971)

John's first paper was published in 1971. As of 22 November 2019, ADS says it has been cited 889 times. It introduced several ideas that became key to the study of flares and their X-radiation. A previous nugget dealt with the thick target model. Another big new idea was the possibility of "inverting" observed X-ray spectra to deduce the energy distribution of the emitting electrons. Write J(ε) for the observed energy flux at photon energy ε (erg keV-1 cm-2 s-1). Failed to parse (PNG conversion failed; check for correct installation of latex, dvips, gs, and convert): F(\epsilon) = \int_\epsilon^\infty F(E) \frac{\mathrm{d}\sigma}{\mathrm{d}\epsilon}(E,\epsilon) \mathrm{d}E

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