C. H. D. Buys Ballot

Christophorus Henricus Diedericus Buys Ballot (1817 to 1890) was a Dutch chemist and meteorologist, the namesake of Buys Ballot's law, which says that a person in the Northern Hemisphere who stands with the back to the wind has low atmospheric pressure to the left and high pressure to the right. Born in Kloetinge to a Dutch Reformed minister, he attended the gymnasium at Zaltbommel and the University of Utrecht, took his doctorate in 1844 and became lecturer in mineralogy and geology there, adding theoretical chemistry in 1846. He was professor of mathematics from 1847 and of physics from 1867 until he retired. In 1845 he tested the Doppler effect for sound by having musicians play a calibrated note on a train between Utrecht and Amsterdam. He founded the Royal Dutch Meteorological Institute in 1854 and led it until his death, and in 1873 he organized the International Meteorological Organization, the forerunner of the World Meteorological Organization, as its first chairman.