Julio Garavito Armero (January 5, 1865 – March 11, 1920) was born in Bogotá, Colombia. He was a prodigy that studied mathematics and lunar interactions on oceanic and weather fluctuations. Born amidst two major civil wars, the latter of which ended in 1877, Colombia introduced public education, allowing Julio to attend high school until 1884. A proceeding civil war delayed his continuation at university until 1887, where he graduated, having studied mathematics and civil engineering at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia in 1891.
He was appointed head of the National Astronomical Observation in 1892, one year after graduating from undergraduate school. For almost 20 years after he led a series of studies into the trajectories of several astrological phenomena, including Halley’s Comet and he calculated Bogota’s latitude. His most significant contribution was the connection between the Moon’s orbit and its influence over the Earth. He died at the young age of 55 due to tuberculosis in 1920. Due to his contribution to lunar studies, the International Astronomical Union has named one of the Moon’s craters, Garavito, after him.
REFERENCES:
- https://mathshistory.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Garavito/
- https://www.unsw.edu.au/science/about-us/equity-diversity-inclusion/science-history-trail/julio-garavito-armero
- https://www.eltiempo.com/archivo/documento/CMS-15055337
IMAGE SOURCE:
Public Domain
Bank of the Republic. http://www.banrep.gov.co/es/contenidos/page/billete-20000-pesos
