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MOST IMPORTANT SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERIES
Planet Neptune. History and essence of scientific discovery
Directory / The most important scientific discoveries After Herschel's discovery of Uranus in many observatories of the world, careful observations of the motion of the new planet began. Using Newton's laws and taking into account the attraction of the planets discovered by that time, astronomers refined the orbit of Uranus and by the middle of the first half of the XNUMXth century they were finally convinced that the apparent orbit of the new planet and the results of calculations every year of observations ... diverge more and more. The most astute scientists have boldly suggested that the motion of Uranus is strongly influenced by a rather large planet located behind it and still unknown to science. Urbain Le Verrier in France and John Adams in England were able to mathematically accurately determine the position and size of an unknown planet "perturbing" the orbit of Uranus. If you follow the chronology in fact, then you should first outline the history of the research of the English astronomer John Adams. John Couch Adams (1819–1892) was born into a farmer's family in Lidcote, Cornwall. Even as a child, he showed exceptional mathematical abilities for his age, and in 1831 his parents sent him to study at a private school in Devonport, known for its high level of teaching. He spent all his free time there, at the Institute of Mechanics, and here he first became familiar with scientific literature. In 1835, he himself observes Halley's comet, and in 1837 - a lunar eclipse, after which he publishes his first short note. In the autumn of 1839, he brilliantly passes the exam at St. John's College at the University of Cambridge and begins his studies there. Astronomy fascinates Adams more and more. In 1841, he got acquainted with the publication of the director of the Greenwich Observatory Erie in 1832, which outlined Bouvard's theory for Uranus, described its difficulties in taking into account "old" and "new" observations together, and its discrepancies with observations after 1820. This determined the scientific path of Adams for many years. In the same 1841, Adams begins to study astronomy as a regular student course, in particular, the theory of the motion of the moon and planets. Then, throughout 1842, he prepared for the famous annual mathematical competition for Cambridge, which was the official examination for a bachelor's degree in mathematical sciences. After the competition, Adams acquires a bachelor's degree. As the first prize winner, he becomes a member of the college's scientific council. But the problem of Uranus worries him most of all. By this time, he had finally strengthened the opinion that irregularities in the movement of Uranus are caused by an unknown more distant planet. As can be seen from the entries in Adams' diaries, he was finally convinced of this by Mary Somerville's popular science book, The Connection Between the Physical Sciences. At the beginning of the summer of 1843, Adams left for the summer vacation to his home in Lidkot, where he finally began to study Uranus. In October of this year, he is already receiving the first results. He continues to work on this problem further. At the same time, he gets even more mathematically accurate solutions to the problem. In total, from the summer of 1843 to September 1845, Adams received six solutions, each of which he considered more accurate than the previous one. Although Adams became very determined and bold in his scientific plans and research, but in everyday life he was incredibly modest and timid. So, the first five solutions to the problem of an unknown planet, having not seen the light and not becoming known to anyone at that time, subsequently moved only to the shelves of the archives of the Cambridge College of St. John, where they are kept as a great value until now. Only the sixth solution, or rather, only a summary of the results, which seemed to be the most complete and accurate, Adams ventured to show privately in the autumn of 1845 to Airy and James Challis, professor of astronomy, director of the Cambridge Observatory, whom he considered the greatest authorities in astronomy More or less detail this decision and the last, seventh decision received in 1846, are described in the only article that was presented by Adams as a report at a meeting of the Royal Astronomical Society of England only in November 1846 (after the actual discovery of Neptune). From this article, and from very brief statements in the literature, one can judge the content of Adams's first studies. Adams writes a short note in which he explains that the solution of the most difficult task that has been troubling the entire astronomical world for almost fifteen years has been completed. But Eri reacted to Adams's note clearly negatively. He did not meet Adams in word or deed. So, from September 1845 to July 1846, the results obtained by Adams had no practical effect. Not a word about them appeared in the press. At the same time, the French astronomer Le Verrier worked on the same problem as Adams, knowing nothing about the research of the English scientist. Urbain Jean Joseph Le Verrier - one of the greatest French astronomers of the XNUMXth century. Suffice it to say that in the second half of the twentieth century, the French Astronomical Yearbook preferred to publish the coordinates of Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars, that is, four of the nine planets, calculated on the basis of the theory and specific formulas of Le Verrier! But the discovery of Neptune brought Le Verrier the greatest and worldwide fame. Urbain Le Verrier (1811-1877) was born in the town of Saint-Lô in Normandy. The father is a humble employee. Already at school, Le Verrier showed an aptitude for science, and parents, who had ambitious hopes for their son, sent him in 1828 to the college of the city of Caena for two years to improve their knowledge in mathematics. Le Verrier graduated from college in 1830. A year later, he successfully withstands the competition for the Polytechnic School. After graduating from school with honors after three years, Le Verrier got the opportunity to independently choose a job. He became a chemist in one of the government agencies. Le Verrier was introduced to astronomy by chance. In 1837 his knowledge of astronomy was still rather weak. But the career of a scientist, thanks to his great talent, turned out to be fast and brilliant. Already in 1839, after two years of very intensive work, he submitted to the Paris Academy of Sciences a report "On the secular perturbations (changes) of planetary orbits", which was soon published. In 1840, Le Verrier published even more precise results on this problem. In the next three years, he worked on the theory of the motion of Mercury. From the end of 1843 until the summer of 1845, Le Verrier carried out very interesting studies of some short-period comets, and immediately published the results, which also entered the golden fund of celestial mechanics. It is not surprising that in the summer of 1845, Francois Arago, director of the Paris Observatory and head of French astronomy at that time, suggested that Le Verrier take up the then most urgent problem of discovering an unknown planet that disturbed Uranus. Le Verrier immediately proceeds to this problem. His research history is relatively short and successful. In November 1845, he presented to the Academy of Sciences and immediately published the first article on Uranus. He rebuilds the entire theory of the motion of Uranus, taking into account perturbations from known planets, overlapping and refining everything that was done by Bouvard. His work and the nature of the presentation itself were distinguished by thoroughness, attention to the finest details, and clarity. Throughout the winter of 1845 and the spring of 1846, Le Verrier intensively continues his research and on June 1 submits the second article on this problem to the Academy of Sciences. It consists of two parts. In the first part, Le Verrier re-compares all existing observations of Uranus and calculations on his exact theory of the motion of Uranus. In the second part, Le Verrier moves on to the hypothesis of the existence of an unknown planet. First of all, he briefly and clearly analyzes other hypotheses regarding the reasons for the misbehavior of Uranus, disagreeing with them. Le Verrier then poses a problem similar in content to that considered by Adams: to determine the elements of the orbit of an unknown perturbing planet, as well as corrections to the elements of the original orbit of Uranus, so that in the end the theory of the motion of Uranus, taking into account the influence of this unknown planet, would correspond to observations. In this article, he gives a preliminary solution to the problem. The whole analysis looks on the whole very solid and leaves no doubt about the truth of the results. In France, Le Verrier's article was greeted with enthusiasm and regarded as an analytical triumph. However, the French astronomers, to whom Le Verrier turned first of all, were not going to organize the search for a new planet. He is urgently looking for opportunities to "introduce his work into observational practice." Le Verrier did not turn to venerable astronomers and directors of observatories. He turned to the young German astronomer Johann Gottfried Galle, an assistant at the Berlin Observatory. On September 18, Le Verrier sends a letter to Halle, in which he writes: “... I would like to find a persistent observer who would agree to devote some time to observations in that region of the sky where an unknown planet may be located. I came to my conclusion on the basis of the theory of motion Uranus..." Halle received this letter on 23 September. His reaction was immediate and positive. That same night, he sat down at the telescope - a 23-centimeter refractor of the Berlin Observatory. Galle began to help D'Arrest, who had a happy idea. He suggested using a stellar map of the sky and immediately comparing the positions of the observed and recorded celestial bodies in the course of observations. An unknown planet should not be on the map, so the planet will be the star that is not marked on the map. True, a detailed and accurate star map was required, without which such a method of searching for a planet would only lead to misunderstandings. Neither English nor French astronomers had such a map of this part of the sky. But she ended up at the Berlin Observatory. It was a map of the star atlas of the Berlin Academy of Sciences by Carl Bremiker (1804–1877), printed at the end of 1845, but not yet distributed to other observatories. Taking the map, Galle and d'Arrest continued their observation. Galle named the stars one by one, and d'Arrest marked them on the map. Soon, namely, almost exactly at midnight, Galle named a star of about 8th magnitude, which d'Arrest did not find on the map. Its position differed from that calculated from Le Verrier's data, but only slightly. Therefore, this was the long-sought planet. Only a few hours passed from the beginning of observations to the remarkable discovery on that significant night of September 23, 1846. The discovery was confirmed the next night. Everything matched Le Verrier's data: position, brightness, proper motion. On the morning of September 25, Galle writes a letter to Le Verrier, confirming the fact of the discovery of the planet: “The planet whose position you indicated really exists. On the same day that I received your letter, I discovered a star of 8th magnitude, not indicated on an excellent map Bremiker) from the star atlas published by the Berlin Academy of Sciences. Observations the following night confirmed that this is the desired planet." These are the circumstances of the official and universally recognized discovery of the eighth planet of the solar system. The method by which the existence of Neptune was predicted has captured the imagination of scientists. The movement of Neptune began to be closely monitored and soon discovered such significant differences between the observed and theoretical orbits of the new star that this could only be explained by the existence of another planet located beyond Neptune! On February 18, 1930, young astronomer Clyde Tombaugh of the Lovell Observatory in America finally discovered (at a distance of almost three times the radius of Neptune's orbit) a new planet in the solar system, called Pluto. Tombo thereby confirmed the calculations of the famous theoretical astronomers Percival Lovell and William Pickering. Truly, as the famous French optician and astronomer François Arago said, "... mental eyes can replace strong telescopes ..." Author: Samin D.K.
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