Astronomical Curiosities Part 23

Prof. Newcomb said of Adams, the co-discoverer of Neptune with Leverrier, "Adams' intellect was one of the keenest I ever knew. The most difficult problem of mathematical astronomy and the most recondite principles that underlie the theory of the celestial motions were to him but child's play." Airy he regarded as "the most commanding figure in the astronomy of our time."[508] He spoke of Delaunay, the great French astronomer, as a most kindly and attractive man, and says, "His investigations of the moon's motion is one of the most extraordinary pieces of mathematical work ever turned out by a single person. It fills two quarto volumes, and the reader who attempts to go through any part of the calculations will wonder how one man could do the work in a lifetime."[509]

Sir George B. Airy and Prof. J. C. Adams died in the same month. The former on January 2, 1892, and the latter on January 22 of the same year.

It is known from the parish register of Burstow in Surrey that Flamsteed (Rev. John Flamsteed), the first Astronomer Royal at Greenwich, was buried in the church at that place on January 12, 1720; but a search for his grave made by Mr. J. Carpenter in 1866 and by Mr. Lynn in 1880 led to no result. In Mrs. Flamsteed's will a sum of twenty-five pounds was left for the purpose of erecting a monument to the memory of the great astronomer in Burstow Church; but it does not appear that any monument was ever erected. Flamsteed was Rector of the Parish of Burstow.[510] He was succeeded in 1720 by the Rev. James Pound, another well-known astronomer.

Pound died in 1724.[511]

Evelyn says in his Diary, 1676, September 10, "Dined with Mr. Flamsteed, the learned astrologer and mathematician, whom his Majesty had established in the new Observatory in Greenwich Park furnished with the choicest instruments. An honest sincere man."[512] This shows that in those days the term "astrologer" was synonymous with "astronomer."

In an article on "Our Debt to Astronomy," by Prof. Russell Tracy Crawford (Berkeley Astronomical Department, California, U.S.A.), the following remarks occur:--

"Behind the artisan is a chemist, behind the chemist is a physicist, behind the physicist is a mathematician, and behind the mathematician is an astronomer." "Were it not for the data furnished by astronomers, commerce by sea would practically stop. The sailing-master on the high seas could not determine his position, nor in what direction to head his s.h.i.+p in order to reach a desired harbour. Think what this means in dollars and cents, and estimate it if you can. For this one service alone the science of astronomy is worth more in dollars and cents to the world in one week than has been expended upon it since the beginning of civilization. Do you think that Great Britain, for instance, would take in exchange an amount equal to its national debt for what astronomy gives it? I answer for you most emphatically, 'No.'"

In his interesting book, _Reminiscences of an Astronomer_, Prof. Simon Newcomb says with reference to the calculations for the _Nautical Almanac_ (referred to in the above extract)--

"A more hopeless problem than this could not be presented to the ordinary human intellect. There are tens of thousands of men who could be successful in all the ordinary walks of life, hundreds who could wield empires, thousands who could gain wealth, for one who could take up this astronomical problem with any hope of success. The men who have done it are, therefore, in intellect the select few of the human race--an aristocracy ranking above all others in the scale of being.

The astronomical ephemeris is the last outcome of their productive genius."

In a paper on the "Aspects of American Astronomy," Prof. Newcomb says, "A great telescope is of no use without a man at the end of it, and what the telescope may do depends more upon this appendage than upon the instrument itself. The place which telescopes and observatories have taken in astronomical history are by no means proportional to their dimensions.

Many a great instrument has been a mere toy in the hands of its owner.

Many a small one has become famous. Twenty years ago there was here in your city [Chicago] a modest little instrument which, judged by its size, could not hold up its head with the great ones even of that day. It was the private property of a young man holding no scientific position and scarcely known to the public. And yet that little telescope is to-day among the famous ones of the world, having made memorable advances in the astronomy of double stars, and shown its owner to be a worthy successor of the Herschels and Struves in that line of work."[513] Here Prof. Newcomb evidently refers to Prof. Burnham, and the 6-inch telescope with which he made many of his remarkable discoveries of double stars. With reference to Burnham's work, Prof. Barnard says--

"It represents the labour of a struggling amateur, who during the day led the drudging life of a stenographer in the United States court in Chicago, and at night worked among the stars for the pure love of it.

Such work deserves an everlasting fame, and surely this has fallen to Mr. Burnham."

Admiral Smyth says--

"A man may prove a good astronomer without possessing a s.p.a.cious observatory: thus Kepler was wont to observe on the bridge at Prague; Schroter studied the moon, and Harding found a planet from a _gloriette_; while Olbers discovered two new planets from an attic of his house."[514]

It is probably not generally known that "some of the greatest astronomers of modern times, such as Kepler, Newton, Hansen, Laplace, and Leverrier, scarcely ever looked through a telescope."[515]

Kepler, who always signed himself Keppler in German, is usually supposed to have been born on December 21, 1571, in the imperial town of Weil, but according to Baron von Breitschwert,[516] he was really born on December 27, 1571, in the village of Magstadt in Wurtemberg.

According to Lieut. Winterhalter, M. Perrotin of the Nice Observatory declared "that two hours' work with a large instrument is as fatiguing as eight with a small one, the labour involved increasing in proportion to the cube of the aperture, the chances of seeing decreasing in the same ratio, while it can hardly be said that the advantages increase in like proportion."[517]

The late Mr. Proctor has well said--

"It is well to remember that the hatred which many entertain against the doctrine of development as applied to solar systems and stellar galaxies is not in reality a sign, as they imagine, of humility, but is an effort to avoid the recognition of the nothingness of man in the presence of the infinities of s.p.a.ce and time and vitality presented within the universe of G.o.d."[518]

Humboldt says--

"That arrogant spirit of incredulity, which rejects facts without attempting to investigate them, is in some cases almost more injurious than an unquestioning credulity. Both are alike detrimental to the force of investigations."[519]

With reference to the precession of the equinoxes and the changes it produces in the position of the Pole Star, it is stated in a recent book on science that the entrance pa.s.sage of the Great Pyramid of Ghizeh is inclined at an angle of 30 to the horizon, and therefore points to the celestial pole. But this is quite incorrect. The Great Pyramid, it is true, is situated close to the lat.i.tude of 30. But the entrance pa.s.sage does not point exactly to the pole. The inclination was measured by Col.

Vyse, and found to be 26 45'. For six out of the nine pyramids of Ghizeh, Col. Vyse found an _average_ inclination of 26 47', these inclinations ranging from 25 55' (2nd, or pyramid of Mycerinus) to 28 0'

(9th pyramid).[520] Sir John Herschel gives 3970 B.C. as the probable date of the erection of the Great Pyramid.[520] At that time the distance of a Draconis (the Pole Star of that day) from the pole was 3 44' 25", so that when on the meridian _below_ the pole (its lower culmination as it is termed) its alt.i.tude was 30 - 3 44' 25" = 26 15' 35", which agrees fairly well with the inclination of the entrance pa.s.sage. Letronne found a date of 3430 B.C.; but the earlier date agrees better with the evidence derived from Egyptology.

Emerson says--

"I am brother to him who squared the pyramids By the same stars I watch."

From February 6 to 15, 1908, all the bright planets were visible together at the same time. Mercury was visible above the western horizon after sunset, Venus very brilliant with Saturn a little above it, Mars higher still, all ranged along the ecliptic, and lastly Jupiter rising in the east.[521] This simultaneous visibility of all the bright planets is rather a rare occurrence.

With reference to the great improbability of Laplace's original Nebular Hypothesis being true, Dr. See says, "We may calculate from the preponderance of small bodies actually found in the solar system--eight princ.i.p.al planets, twenty-five satellites (besides our moon), and 625 asteroids--that the chances of a nebula devoid of hydrostatic pressure producing small bodies is about 2{658} to 1, or a decillion decillion (10{66}){6} to the sixth power, to unity. This figure is so very large that we shall content ourselves with ill.u.s.trating a decillion decillion, and for this purpose we avail ourselves of a method employed by ARCHIMEDES to ill.u.s.trate his system of enumeration. Imagine sand so fine that 10,000 grains will be contained in the s.p.a.ce occupied by a poppy seed, itself about the size of a pin's head; and then conceive a sphere described about our sun with a radius of 200,000 astronomical units[522] (a Centauri being at a distance of 275,000) entirely filled with this fine sand. The number of grains of sand in this sphere of the fixed stars would be a decillion decillion[523] (10{66}){6}. All these grains of sand against one is the probability that a nebula devoid of hydrostatical pressure, such as that which formed the planets and satellites, will lead to the genesis of such small bodies revolving about a greatly predominant central ma.s.s."[524] In other words, it is practically certain that the solar system was _not_ formed from a gaseous nebula in the manner originally proposed by Laplace.

On the other hand, the evolution of the solar system from a rotating spiral nebula seems very probable.

Some one has said that "the world knows nothing of its greatest men." The name of Mr. George W. Hill will probably be unknown to many of my readers.

But the late Prof. Simon Newcomb said of him that he "will easily rank as the greatest master of mathematical astronomy during the last quarter of the nineteenth century."[525] Of Prof. Newcomb himself--also a great master in the same subject--Sir Robert Ball says he was "the most conspicuous figure among the brilliant band of contemporary American astronomers."[526]

An astronomer is supposed to say, with reference to unwelcome visitors to his observatory, "Who steals my purse steals trash; but he that filches from me my clear nights, robs me of that which not enriches him, and makes me poor indeed."[527]

Cicero said, "In the heavens there is nothing fortuitous, unadvised, inconstant, or variable; all there is order, truth, reason, and constancy"; and he adds, "The creation is as plain a signal of the being of a G.o.d, as a globe, a clock, or other artificial machine, is of a man."[528]

"Of all the epigrams attributed rightly or wrongly to Plato, the most famous has been expanded by Sh.e.l.ley into the four glorious lines--

"'Thou wert the morning star among the living Ere thy pure light had fled, Now having died, thou art as Hesperus, giving New splendour to the dead.'"[529]

Sir David Brewster has well said,[530] "Isaiah furnishes us with a striking pa.s.sage, in which the occupants of the earth and the heavens are separately described, 'I have made the earth, and created man upon it: I, even My hands, have stretched out the heavens, and all _their_ host have I commanded' (Isaiah xlv. 12). But in addition to these obvious references to life and things pertaining to life, we find in Isaiah the following remarkable pa.s.sage: 'For thus saith the Lord that created the heavens; G.o.d Himself that formed the earth and made it; He hath established it, _He created it not_ IN VAIN, He formed _it to be inhabited_' (Isaiah xlv. 18).

Here we have a distinct declaration from the inspired prophet that the _earth would have been created_ IN VAIN _if it had not been formed to be inhabited_; and hence we draw the conclusion that as the Creator cannot be supposed to have made the worlds of our system and those in the sidereal system in vain, they must have been formed to be inhabited." This seems to the present writer to be a good and sufficient reply to Dr. Wallace's theory that our earth is the only inhabited world in the Universe![531]

Such a theory seems incredible.

The recent discovery made by Prof. Kapteyn, and confirmed by Mr.

Eddington, of two drifts of stars, indicating the existence of _two_ universes, seems to render untenable Dr. Wallace's hypothesis of the earth's central position in a single universe.[531]

NOTE ADDED IN THE PRESS.

While these pages were in the Press, it was announced, by Dr. Max Wolf of Heidelberg, that he found Halley's comet on a photograph taken on the early morning of September 12, 1909. The discovery has been confirmed at Greenwich Observatory. The comet was close to the position predicted by the calculations of Messrs. Cowell and Crommelin of Greenwich Observatory (_Nature_, September 16, 1908).