English pharmacist and meteorologist

Luke Howard classified and named cloud formations. He understood that even though clouds have a countless variety of shapes, they have only three basic forms, which he termed cirrus (hair curl), cumulus (heap), and stratus (layer). There can be combinations of any of these three, such as cumulostratus or cirrocumulus. Any of them can also be a "nimbus" (rain) cloud, such as cumulonimbus. High clouds are designated by the prefix "alto-," such as altostratus.

Howard was born in London, England, on November 28, 1772, the eldest son of a prosperous businessman, Robert Howard, and his wife Elizabeth, née Leatham. As devout Quakers, the family enrolled Luke in a prominent Quaker institution, Thomas Huntly's School in Burford, near Oxford, from 1780 to 1787. That was the extent of his formal education. Although not trained as a scientist, he learned enough chemistry and pharmacy on...