Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men Part 26

By reason of the precession of the equinoxes, it is not always the same groups of stars, the same constellations, which are perceived in the heavens at the same season of the year. In the lapse of ages the constellations of winter will become those of summer and reciprocally.

By reason of the precession of the equinoxes, the pole does not always occupy the same place in the starry vault. The moderately bright star which is very justly named in the present day, the pole star, was far removed from the pole in the time of Hipparchus; in the course of a few centuries it will again appear removed from it. The designation of pole star has been, and will be, applied to stars very distant from each other.

When the inquirer in attempting to explain natural phenomena has the misfortune to enter upon a wrong path, each precise observation throws him into new complications. Seven spheres of crystal did not suffice for representing the phenomena as soon as the ill.u.s.trious astronomer of Rhodes discovered precession. An eighth sphere was then wanted to account for a movement in which all the stars partic.i.p.ated at the same time.

Copernicus having deprived the earth of its alleged immobility, gave a very simple explanation of the most minute circ.u.mstances of precession.

He supposed that the axis of rotation does not remain exactly parallel to itself; that in the course of each complete revolution of the earth around the sun, the axis deviates from its position by a small quant.i.ty; in a word, instead of supposing the circ.u.mpolar stars to advance in a certain way towards the pole, he makes the pole advance towards the stars. This hypothesis divested the mechanism of the universe of the greatest complication which the love of theorizing had introduced into it. A new Alphonse would have then wanted a pretext to address to his astronomical synod the profound remark, so erroneously interpreted, which history ascribes to the king of Castile.

If the conception of Copernicus improved by Kepler had, as we have just seen, introduced a striking improvement into the mechanism of the heavens, it still remained to discover the motive force which, by altering the position of the terrestrial axis during each successive year, would cause it to describe an entire circle of nearly 50 in diameter, in a period of about 26,000 years.

Newton conjectured that this force arose from the action of the sun and moon upon the redundant matter acc.u.mulated in the equatorial regions of the earth: thus he made the precession of the equinoxes depend upon the spheroidal figure of the earth; he declared that upon a round planet no precession would exist.

All this was quite true, but Newton did not succeed in establishing it by a mathematical process. Now this great man had introduced into philosophy the severe and just rule: Consider as certain only what has been demonstrated. The demonstration of the Newtonian conception of the precession of the equinoxes was, then, a great discovery, and it is to D'Alembert that the glory of it is due.[27] The ill.u.s.trious geometer gave a complete explanation of the general movement, in virtue of which the terrestrial axis returns to the same stars in a period of about 26,000 years. He also connected with the theory of gravitation the perturbation of precession discovered by Bradley, that remarkable oscillation which the earth's axis experiences continually during its movement of progression, and the period of which, amounting to about eighteen years, is exactly equal to the time which the intersection of the moon's...o...b..t with the ecliptic employs in describing the 360 of the entire circ.u.mference.

Geometers and astronomers are justly occupied as much with the figure and physical const.i.tution which the earth might have had in remote ages as with its present figure and const.i.tution.

As soon as our countryman Richer discovered that a body, whatever be its nature, weighs less when it is transported nearer the equatorial regions, everybody perceived that the earth, if it was originally fluid, ought to bulge out at the equator. Huyghens and Newton did more; they calculated the difference between the greatest and least axes, the excess of the equatorial diameter over the line of the poles.[28]

The calculation of Huyghens was founded upon hypothetic properties of the attractive force which were wholly inadmissible; that of Newton upon a theorem which he ought to have demonstrated; the theory of the latter was characterized by a defect of a still more serious nature: it supposed the density of the earth during the original state of fluidity, to be h.o.m.ogeneous.[29] When in attempting the solution of great problems we have recourse to such simplifications; when, in order to elude difficulties of calculation, we depart so widely from natural and physical conditions, the results relate to an ideal world, they are in reality nothing more than flights of the imagination.

In order to apply mathematical a.n.a.lysis usefully to the determination of the figure of the earth it was necessary to abandon all idea of h.o.m.ogeneity, all constrained resemblance between the forms of the superposed and unequally dense strata; it was necessary also to examine the case of a central solid nucleus. This generality increased tenfold the difficulties of the problem; neither Clairaut nor D'Alembert was, however, arrested by them. Thanks to the efforts of these two eminent geometers, thanks to some essential developments due to their immediate successors, and especially to the ill.u.s.trious Legendre, the theoretical determination of the figure of the earth has attained all desirable perfection. There now reigns the most satisfactory accordance between the results of calculation and those of direct measurement. The earth, then, was originally fluid: a.n.a.lysis has enabled us to ascend to the earliest ages of our planet.[30]

In the time of Alexander comets were supposed by the majority of the Greek philosophers to be merely meteors generated in our atmosphere.

During the middle ages, persons, without giving themselves much concern about the nature of those bodies, supposed them to prognosticate sinister events. Regiomonta.n.u.s and Tycho Brahe proved by their observations that they are situate beyond the moon; Hevelius, Dorfel, &c., made them revolve around the sun; Newton established that they move under the immediate influence of the attractive force of that body, that they do not describe right lines, that, in fact, they obey the laws of Kepler. It was necessary, then, to prove that the orbits of comets are curves which return into themselves, or that the same comet has been seen on several distinct occasions. This discovery was reserved for Halley. By a minute investigation of the circ.u.mstances connected with the apparitions of all the comets to be met with in the records of history, in ancient chronicles, and in astronomical annals, this eminent philosopher was enabled to prove that the comets of 1682, of 1607, and of 1531, were in reality so many successive apparitions of one and the same body.

This ident.i.ty involved a conclusion before which more than one astronomer shrunk. It was necessary to admit that the time of a complete revolution of the comet was subject to a great variation, amounting to as much as two years in seventy-six.

Were such great discordances due to the disturbing action of the planets?

The answer to this question would introduce comets into the category of ordinary planets or would exclude them for ever. The calculation was difficult: Clairaut discovered the means of effecting it. While success was still uncertain, the ill.u.s.trious geometer gave proof of the greatest boldness, for in the course of the year 1758 he undertook to determine the time of the following year when the comet of 1682 would reappear. He designated the constellations, nay the stars, which it would encounter in its progress.

This was not one of those remote predictions which astrologers and others formerly combined very skilfully with the tables of mortality, so that they might not be falsified during their lifetime: the event was close at hand. The question at issue was nothing less than the creation of a new era in cometary astronomy, or the casting of a reproach upon science, the consequences of which it would long continue to feel.

Clairaut found by a long process of calculation, conducted with great skill, that the action of Jupiter and Saturn ought to have r.e.t.a.r.ded the movement of the comet; that the time of revolution compared with that immediately preceding, would be increased 518 days by the disturbing action of Jupiter, and 100 days by the action of Saturn, forming a total of 618 days, or more than a year and eight months.

Never did a question of astronomy excite a more intense, a more legitimate curiosity. All cla.s.ses of society awaited with equal interest the announced apparition. A Saxon peasant, Palitzch, first perceived the comet. Henceforward, from one extremity of Europe to the other, a thousand telescopes traced each night the path of the body through the constellations. The route was always, within the limits of precision of the calculations, that which Clairaut had indicated beforehand. The prediction of the ill.u.s.trious geometer was verified in regard both to time and s.p.a.ce: astronomy had just achieved a great and important triumph, and, as usual, had destroyed at one blow a disgraceful and inveterate prejudice. As soon as it was established that the returns of comets might be calculated beforehand, those bodies lost for ever their ancient prestige. The most timid minds troubled themselves quite as little about them as about eclipses of the sun and moon, which are equally subject to calculation. In fine, the labours of Clairaut had produced a deeper impression on the public mind than the learned, ingenious, and acute reasoning of Bayle.

The heavens offer to reflecting minds nothing more curious or more strange than the equality which subsists between the movements of rotation and revolution of our satellite. By reason of this perfect equality the moon always presents the same side to the earth. The hemisphere which we see in the present day is precisely that which our ancestors saw in the most remote ages; it is exactly the hemisphere which future generations will perceive.

The doctrine of final causes which certain philosophers have so abundantly made use of in endeavouring to account for a great number of natural phenomena was in this particular case totally inapplicable. In fact, how could it be pretended that mankind could have any interest in perceiving incessantly the same hemisphere of the moon, in never obtaining a glimpse of the opposite hemisphere? On the other hand, the existence of a perfect, mathematical equality between elements having no necessary connection--such as the movements of translation and rotation of a given celestial body--was not less repugnant to all ideas of probability. There were besides two other numerical coincidences quite as extraordinary; an ident.i.ty of direction, relative to the stars, of the equator and orbit of the moon; exactly the same precessional movements of these two planes. This group of singular phenomena, discovered by J.D. Ca.s.sini, const.i.tuted the mathematical code of what is called the _Libration of the Moon_.

The libration of the moon formed a very imperfect part of physical astronomy when Lagrange made it depend on a circ.u.mstance connected with the figure of our satellite which was not observable from the earth, and thereby connected it completely with the principles of universal gravitation.

At the time when the moon was converted into a solid body, the action of the earth compelled it to a.s.sume a less regular figure than if no attracting body had been situate in its vicinity. The action of our globe rendered elliptical an equator which otherwise would have been circular. This disturbing action did not prevent the lunar equator from bulging out in every direction, but the prominence of the equatorial diameter directed towards the earth became four times greater than that of the diameter which we see perpendicularly.

The moon would appear then, to an observer situate in s.p.a.ce and examining it transversely, to be elongated towards the earth, to be a sort of pendulum without a point of suspension. When a pendulum deviates from the vertical, the action of gravity brings it back; when the princ.i.p.al axis of the moon recedes from its usual direction, the earth in like manner compels it to return.

We have here, then, a complete explanation of a singular phenomenon, without the necessity of having recourse to the existence of an almost miraculous equality between two movements of translation and rotation, entirely independent of each other. Mankind will never see but one face of the moon. Observation had informed us of this fact; now we know further that this is due to a physical cause which may be calculated, and which is visible only to the mind's eye,--that it is attributable to the elongation which the diameter of the moon experienced when it pa.s.sed from the liquid to the solid state under the attractive influence of the earth.

If there had existed originally a slight difference between the movements of rotation and revolution of the moon, the attraction of the earth would have reduced these movements to a rigorous equality. This attraction would have even sufficed to cause the disappearance of a slight want of coincidence in the intersections of the equator and orbit of the moon with the plane of the ecliptic.

The memoir in which Lagrange has so successfully connected the laws of libration with the principles of gravitation, is no less remarkable for intrinsic excellence than style of execution. After having perused this production, the reader will have no difficulty in admitting that the word _elegance_ may be appropriately applied to mathematical researches.

In this a.n.a.lysis we have merely glanced at the astronomical discoveries of Clairaut, D'Alembert, and Lagrange. We shall be somewhat less concise in noticing the labours of Laplace.

After having enumerated the various forces which must result from the mutual action of the planets and satellites of our system, even the great Newton did not venture to investigate the general nature of the effects produced by them. In the midst of the labyrinth formed by increases and diminutions of velocity, variations in the forms of the orbits, changes of distances and inclinations, which these forces must evidently produce, the most learned geometer would fail to discover a trustworthy guide. This extreme complication gave birth to a discouraging reflection. Forces so numerous, so variable in position, so different in intensity, seemed to be incapable of maintaining a condition of equilibrium except by a sort of miracle. Newton even went so far as to suppose that the planetary system did not contain within itself the elements of indefinite stability; he was of opinion that a powerful hand must intervene from time to time, to repair the derangements occasioned by the mutual action of the various bodies.

Euler, although farther advanced than Newton in a knowledge of the planetary pertubations, refused also to admit that the solar system was const.i.tuted so as to endure for ever.

Never did a greater philosophical question offer itself to the inquiries of mankind. Laplace attacked it with boldness, perseverance, and success. The profound and long-continued researches of the ill.u.s.trious geometer established with complete evidence that the planetary ellipses are perpetually variable; that the extremities of their major axes make the tour of the heavens; that, independently of an oscillatory motion, the planes of their orbits experienced a displacement in virtue of which their intersections with the plane of the terrestrial orbit are each year directed towards different stars. In the midst of this apparent chaos there is one element which remains constant or is merely subject to small periodic changes; namely, the major axis of each orbit, and consequently the time of revolution of each planet. This is the element which ought to have chiefly varied, according to the learned speculations of Newton and Euler.

The principle of universal gravitation suffices for preserving the stability of the solar system. It maintains the forms and inclinations of the orbits in a mean condition which is subject to slight oscillations; variety does not entail disorder; the universe offers the example of harmonious relations, of a state of perfection which Newton himself doubted. This depends on circ.u.mstances which calculation disclosed to Laplace, and which, upon a superficial view of the subject, would not seem to be capable of exercising so great an influence.

Instead of planets revolving all in the same direction in slightly eccentric orbits, and in planes inclined at small angles towards each other, subst.i.tute different conditions and the stability of the universe will again be put in jeopardy, and according to all probability there will result a frightful chaos.[31]

Although the invariability of the mean distances of the planetary orbits has been more completely demonstrated since the appearance of the memoir above referred to, that is to say by pushing the a.n.a.lytical approximations to a greater extent, it will, notwithstanding, always const.i.tute one of the admirable discoveries of the author of the _Mecanique Celeste_. Dates, in the case of such subjects, are no luxury of erudition. The memoir in which Laplace communicated his results on the invariability of the mean motions or mean distances, is dated 1773.[32] It was in 1784 only, that he established the stability of the other elements of the system from the smallness of the planetary ma.s.ses, the inconsiderable eccentricity of the orbits, and the revolution of the planets in one common direction around the sun.

The discovery of which I have just given an account to the reader excluded at least from the solar system the idea of the Newtonian attraction being a cause of disorder. But might not other forces, by combining with attraction, produce gradually increasing perturbations as Newton and Euler dreaded? Facts of a positive nature seemed to justify these fears.

A comparison of ancient with modern observations revealed the existence of a continual acceleration of the mean motions of the moon and the planet Jupiter, and an equally striking diminution of the mean motion of Saturn. These variations led to conclusions of the most singular nature.

In accordance with the presumed cause of these perturbations, to say that the velocity of a body increased from century to century was equivalent to a.s.serting that the body continually approached the centre of motion; on the other hand, when the velocity diminished, the body must be receding from the centre.

Thus, by a strange arrangement of nature, our planetary system seemed destined to lose Saturn, its most mysterious ornament,--to see the planet accompanied by its ring and seven satellites, plunge gradually into unknown regions, whither the eye armed with the most powerful telescopes has never penetrated. Jupiter, on the other hand, the planet compared with which the earth is so insignificant, appeared to be moving in the opposite direction, so as to be ultimately absorbed in the incandescent matter of the sun. Finally, the moon seemed as if it would one day precipitate itself upon the earth.

There was nothing doubtful or speculative in these sinister forebodings.

The precise dates of the approaching catastrophes were alone uncertain.

It was known, however, that they were very distant. Accordingly, neither the learned dissertations of men of science nor the animated descriptions of certain poets produced any impression upon the public mind.

It was not so with our scientific societies, the members of which regarded with regret the approaching destruction of our planetary system. The Academy of Sciences called the attention of geometers of all countries to these menacing perturbations. Euler and Lagrange descended into the arena. Never did their mathematical genius shine with a brighter l.u.s.tre. Still, the question remained undecided. The inutility of such efforts seemed to suggest only a feeling of resignation on the subject, when from two disdained corners of the theories of a.n.a.lysis, the author of the _Mecanique Celeste_ caused the laws of these great phenomena clearly to emerge. The variations of velocity of Jupiter, Saturn, and the Moon flowed then from evident physical causes, and entered into the category of ordinary periodic perturbations depending upon the principle of attraction. The variations in the dimensions of the orbits which were so much dreaded resolved themselves into simple oscillations included within narrow limits. Finally, by the powerful instrumentality of mathematical a.n.a.lysis, the physical universe was again established on a firm foundation.

I cannot quit this subject without at least alluding to the circ.u.mstances in the solar system upon which depend the so long unexplained variations of velocity of the Moon, Jupiter, and Saturn.

The motion of the earth around the sun is mainly effected in an ellipse, the form of which is liable to vary from the effects of planetary perturbation. These alterations of form are periodic; sometimes the curve, without ceasing to be elliptic, approaches the form of a circle, while at other times it deviates more and more from that form. From the epoch of the earliest recorded observations, the eccentricity of the terrestrial orbit has been diminishing from year to year; at some future epoch the orbit, on the contrary, will begin to deviate from the form of a circle, and the eccentricity will increase to the same extent as it previously diminished, and according to the same laws.

Now, Laplace has shown that the mean motion of the moon around the earth is connected with the form of the ellipse which the earth describes around the sun; that a diminution of the eccentricity of the ellipse inevitably induces an increase in the velocity of our satellite, and _vice versa_; finally, that this cause suffices to explain the numerical value of the acceleration which the mean motion of the moon has experienced from the earliest ages down to the present time.[33]

The origin of the inequalities in the mean motions of Jupiter and Saturn will be, I hope, as easy to conceive.

Mathematical a.n.a.lysis has not served to represent in finite terms the values of the derangements which each planet experiences in its movement from the action of all the other planets. In the present state of science, this value is exhibited in the form of an indefinite series of terms diminishing rapidly in magnitude. In calculation, it is usual to neglect such of those terms as correspond in the order of magnitude to quant.i.ties beneath the errors of observation. But there are cases in which the order of the term in the series does not decide whether it be small or great. Certain numerical relations between the primitive elements of the disturbing and disturbed planets may impart sensible values to terms which usually admit of being neglected. This case occurs in the perturbations of Saturn produced by Jupiter, and in those of Jupiter produced by Saturn. There exists between the mean motions of these two great planets a simple relation of commensurability, five times the mean motion of Saturn, being, in fact, very nearly equal to twice the mean motion of Jupiter. It happens, in consequence, that certain terms, which would otherwise be very small, acquire from this circ.u.mstance considerable values. Hence arise in the movements of these two planets, inequalities of long duration which require more than 900 years for their complete development, and which represent with marvellous accuracy all the irregularities disclosed by observation.

Is it not astonishing to find in the commensurability of the mean motions of two planets, a cause of perturbation of so influential a nature; to discover that the definitive solution of an immense difficulty--which baffled the genius of Euler, and which even led persons to doubt whether the theory of gravitation was capable of accounting for all the phenomena of the heavens--should depend upon the fortuitous circ.u.mstance of five times the mean motion of Saturn being equal to twice the mean motion of Jupiter? The beauty of the conception and the ultimate result are here equally worthy of admiration.[34]

We have just explained how Laplace demonstrated that the solar system can experience only small periodic oscillations around a certain mean state. Let us now see in what way he succeeded in determining the absolute dimensions of the orbits.

What is the distance of the sun from the earth? No scientific question has occupied in a greater degree the attention of mankind; mathematically speaking, nothing is more simple. It suffices, as in common operations of surveying, to draw visual lines from the two extremities of a known base to an inaccessible object. The remainder is a process of elementary calculation. Unfortunately, in the case of the sun, the distance is great and the bases which can be measured upon the earth are comparatively very small. In such a case the slightest errors in the direction of the visual lines exercise an enormous influence upon the results.

In the beginning of the last century Halley remarked that certain interpositions of Venus between the earth and the sun, or, to use an expression applied to such conjunctions, that the _transits_ of the planet across the sun's disk, would furnish at each observatory an indirect means of fixing the position of the visual ray very superior in accuracy to the most perfect direct methods.[35]

Such was the object of the scientific expeditions undertaken in 1761 and 1769, on which occasions France, not to speak of stations in Europe, was represented at the Isle of Rodrigo by Pingre, at the Isle of St. Domingo by Fleurin, at California by the Abbe Chappe, at Pondicherry by Legentil. At the same epochs England sent Maskelyne to St. Helena, Wales to Hudson's Bay, Mason to the Cape of Good Hope, Captain Cooke to Otaheite, &c. The observations of the southern hemisphere compared with those of Europe, and especially with the observations made by an Austrian astronomer Father h.e.l.l at Wardhus in Lapland, gave for the distance of the sun the result which has since figured in all treatises on astronomy and navigation.