Sir Andrew Noble, 1st Baronet (13 September 1831 – 22 October 1915) was a Scottish physicist noted for his work on ballistics and gunnery. Early life Born at Greenock, he was educated at Edinburgh Academy and at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich. He was commissioned in the Royal Artillery in 1849, promoted captain in 1855 and became secretary of the Royal Artillery Institution. He was secretary of the British government select committee on the replacement of smooth-bore cannon with rifled artillery and carried out research on the subject. In 1859 he became Assistant-Inspector of Artillery and in 1860 a member of the Ordnance Select Committee and of the Committee on Explosives, remaining on the committee until it was dissolved in 1880. Notable work In 1860 he joined Armstrong's armaments works in Elswick, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, first as joint manager and, from 1861, as a partner, where he continued research into artillery, in particular inventing ways of measuring breech pressures. In 1862 he invented the Electro-Mechanical Chronoscope to measure small time intervals between triggers inserted into a gun to determine the acceleration of projectiles as they travelled down the barrel, allowing him to assess the performance of different powders. He worked with Sir Frederick Abel on improving the properties of black powder, making it burn more slowly to produce more gas and a more consistent pressure, with the result that he was able to increase muzzle velocities from 1600 to 2100 feet per second, while the energy developed increased by about 75%. Noble's work also assisted Abel's further development of a new smokeless powder, cordite, in 1889. These developments required the re-design of both the guns and their mountings, manufactured by Armstrongs, which gave them a competitive advantage, ultimately helping the company expand into shipbuilding, locomotives, tanks and aircraft to become one of the world's largest armament firms by 1914. With Sir William Armstrong's effective retirement from active control in about 1890, Noble's primary role changed from scientist to businessman, formally becoming chairman in 1900, and he oversaw much of this growth of the company. Noble claimed that all the Japanese guns which sank the Russian fleet at the crucial battle of Tsushima in 1905, had been manufactured at Elswick. In 1870, at the age of 38 he was recognised for his scientific work and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. He was awarded the Society's Gold Medal in 1880. He