page_title: John Henry Poynting
section_title: Legacy
hierarchical_section_title: John Henry Poynting / Legacy
caption_attribution_description: English: Unitarian Church, Monton, Blue plaque To be found on the south side of the church John_Henry_Poynting
context_page_description: John Henry Poynting FRS was an English physicist. He was the first professor of physics at Mason Science College from 1880 to 1900, and then the successor institution, the University of Birmingham until his death.
context_section_description: Poynting's most famous student may have been Alfred J. Lotka, who was inspired by Poynting to apply the ideas of physical chemistry to biology. Lotka dedicated his classic book on mathematical population biology to Poynting.
  Poynting predicted the `Poynting-Robertson effect', whereby a particle of dust orbiting a star experiences a drag force which makes it spiral slowly into the star.  Howard P Robertson later restated the prediction using General Relativity.
  Craters on Mars and the Moon are named in his honour, as is the main Physics building at the University of Birmingham and the departmental society there, the Poynting Physical Society.
  He is credited with coining the expression "greenhouse effect" in 1909 to explain how infrared-absorbing trace gasses such as carbon dioxide in the atmosphere increases the surface temperature of Earth and Mars.
caption: Blue plaque to Poynting erected in Salford by the Institute of Physics
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