A Reply to Mr. Babbage's Letter to "The Times", "On the Planet Neptune and the Royal Astronomical Society's Medal"

Sheepshanks, Richard; Charles Babbage

Edité par George Barclay, London, 1847

A propos de cet article

Self-wraps 14x21cm. Printed and published by George Barclay. 16pp complete with title page. Pages very good, lightly tanned, disbound from a larger volume with the first and last leaves loose.

This was prepared by the Reverend Richard Sheepshanks (1794-1855), then Vice President of the Royal Astronomical Society (RAS). It relates to the discovery of Neptune on 23 September 1846, considered to be the greatest astronomical discovery of the age. It followed predictions made independently of each other earlier in the same year by two mathematicians, the Englishman John Couch Adams and Frenchman Urbain Le Verrier, both based on anomalies in the orbit of Uranus. Adams' prediction prompted George Airy, the Astronomer Royal, to ask James Challis to search for it. Challis failed, but had in fact observed Neptune twice in 1845 without realising it. Meanwhile, Le Verrier approached Johann Galle at the Berlin Observatory, who succeeded.

This was considered to be on a far higher level than previous planetary discoveries, which had been made by telescope and sometimes by accident. Thus Airy proposed both Adams and Le Verrier for the RAS' 1847 Gold Medal. As the rules allowed only one recipient, debate ensued based on respective timing of their predictions and of publishing those predictions, with also an element of Anglo-French rivalry. According to Sheepshanks, the Council was split, with almost all wanting to award Le Verrier and a large minority wanting to award Adams as well. In an attempt to reconcile the claims, Charles Babbage made various proposals including an ordinary medal dated 1846 for Le Verrier, and a special medal dated 1847 for Adams. In the end, no medal was awarded that year.

Here Sheepshanks provides background on the discovery and the debate before "confuting Mr Babbage's letter, paragraph by paragraph". He cannot resist a few personal digs at Babbage and at his ally James South, co-founder and first President of the RAS along the way. He argues for example that Babbage's allowance of £300 a year to assist South "has not produced a result worth recording in sixteen years [and his] calculating machine, after a lapse of twenty-three years and an outlay of many thousand pounds, has been abandoned as a total loss - nothing produceable but iron bars and brass wheels?".

This was part of a long-running dispute. Sheepshanks, who had been appointed RAS Secretary in 1829, had fallen out with South in 1832 over the latter's refusal to pay for a telescope mount commissioned from Edward Troughton, as he considered it defective. Troughton sued, and with Sheepshanks' backing South had been forced to pay. Meanwhile, Babbage had been in need of further public funds to develop his machine, and blamed Airy (the Government's de facto scientific advisor) and his ally Sheepshanks for blocking them. Rare in commerce.

(References: WM Smart, "John Couch Adams and the Discovery of Neptune", Maria Mitchell Library, 1947; Michael Hoskin, "Astronomers at War: South v. Sheepshanks", JHA, xx, 1989).

N° de réf. du vendeur 6049

Détails bibliographiques

• Titre: A Reply to Mr. Babbage's Letter to "The Times", "On the Planet Neptune and the Royal Astronomical Society's Medal"
• Éditeur: George Barclay, London
• Date de parution: 1847
• Langue: anglais
• Reliure: Soft cover
• État de l'article: Good