Jonathan Homer Lane

Jonathan Homer Lane (August 9, 1819 – May 3, 1880) was an American astrophysicist and inventor.

Biography Lane's parents were Mark and Henrietta (née Tenny) Lane and his education was at the Phillips Exeter Academy in Exeter, New Hampshire. He graduated from Yale University in 1846. While at Yale, Lane studied under astronomer Denison Olmsted. Olmsted’s interest in meteorology, particularly his support for James P. Espy’s thermodynamic model of storms, appear to closely parallel Lane’s later scientific interests and may have influenced him in that direction.

Lane worked for the U.S. Patent Office, and became a principal examiner in 1851, continuing in that position until forced out by a change of political administrations in 1857. From 1860 to 1866, he lived with his brother, a blacksmith, in Franklin, Pennsylvania. During that time, he actively worked on developing an improved "cold apparatus" with which he hoped to reach temperatures as low as -345 °F (-209 °C), building on the work of Sir William Siemens.

The crater Lane on the Moon is named after him.

Published works