SCIENTIFIC CENTENARIES IN 1947

Abstract

A REVIEW of the centenaries which occur in 1947 may well begin with a footnote to Prof. W. M. Smart's address to the Royal Astronomical Society on “John Couch Adams and the Discovery of Neptune”, published in Nature of November 9, 1946. With the publication of the facts connected with the discovery, the controversy began to subside, and at the Oxford meeting of the British Association in June 1847, Adams and Le Verrier met. The latter had been invited to England by Airy ; and J. D. Forbes recorded how he dined at Prof. Powell's with a small but excellent party including Airy, Le Verrier and Adams. Afterwards Forbes went to the Observatory to see Neptune. “Fancy the interest, “he wrote,” of seeing the new planet for the first time in company with its two discoverers ! Of course, there could be no going to bed without seeing it, and accordingly as it rose late, I did not get back to my college till very nearly two in the morning” . A month later Le Verrier was at Cambridge, and so was Otto Struve, and Murchison wrote, “Whilst walking across the quadrangle of Trinity, Leverrier on one arm and Struve on the other, we saw the Duke of Wellington coming towards us in his red gown and I at once said to the two great astronomers, 'Now, gentlemen, here is the opportunity'. Struve was overjoyed, saying it was the thing of all others he wished; but Leverrier turned on his heel and left us saying, Tardonnez, c'est plus ffrt que moi ; je suis Francais'”.