Great Astronomers Part 5

Here, again, in his search for the unknown law, Kepler had no accurate dynamical principles to guide his steps. Of course, we now know not only what the connection between the planet's distance and the planet's periodic time actually is, but we also know that it is a necessary consequence of the law of universal gravitation. Kepler, it is true, was not without certain surmises on the subject, but they were of the most fanciful description. His notions of the planets, accurate as they were in certain important respects, were mixed up with vague ideas as to the properties of metals and the geometrical relations of the regular solids. Above all, his reasoning was penetrated by the supposed astrological influences of the stars and their significant relation to human fate. Under the influence of such a farrago of notions, Kepler resolved to make all sorts of trials in his search for the connection between the distance of a planet from the sun and the time in which the revolution of that planet was accomplished.

It was quite easily demonstrated that the greater the distance of the planet from the sun the longer was the time required for its journey. It might have been thought that the time would be directly proportional to the distance. It was, however, easy to show that this supposition did not agree with the fact. Finding that this simple relation would not do, Kepler undertook a vast series of calculations to find out the true method of expressing the connection. At last, after many vain attempts, he found, to his indescribable joy, that the square of the time in which a planet revolves around the sun was proportional to the cube of the average distance of the planet from that body.

The extraordinary way in which Kepler's views on celestial matters were a.s.sociated with the wildest speculations, is well ill.u.s.trated in the work in which he propounded his splendid discovery just referred to. The announcement of the law connecting the distances of the planets from the sun with their periodic times, was then mixed up with a preposterous conception about the properties of the different planets. They were supposed to be a.s.sociated with some profound music of the spheres inaudible to human ears, and performed only for the benefit of that being whose soul formed the animating spirit of the sun.

Kepler was also the first astronomer who ever ventured to predict the occurrence of that remarkable phenomenon, the transit of a planet in front of the sun's disc. He published, in 1629, a notice to the curious in things celestial, in which he announced that both of the planets, Mercury and Venus, were to make a transit across the sun on specified days in the winter of 1631. The transit of Mercury was duly observed by Ga.s.sendi, and the transit of Venus also took place, though, as we now know, the circ.u.mstances were such that it was not possible for the phenomenon to be witnessed by any European astronomer.

In addition to Kepler's discoveries already mentioned, with which his name will be for ever a.s.sociated, his claim on the grat.i.tude of astronomers chiefly depends on the publication of his famous Rudolphine tables. In this remarkable work means are provided for finding the places of the planets with far greater accuracy than had previously been attainable.

Kepler, it must be always remembered, was not an astronomical observer. It was his function to deal with the observations made by Tycho, and, from close study and comparison of the results, to work out the movements of the heavenly bodies. It was, in fact, Tycho who provided as it were the raw material, while it was the genius of Kepler which wrought that material into a beautiful and serviceable form. For more than a century the Rudolphine tables were regarded as a standard astronomical work. In these days we are accustomed to find the movements of the heavenly bodies set forth with all desirable exact.i.tude in the NAUTICAL ALMANACK, and the similar publication issued by foreign Governments. Let it be remembered that it was Kepler who first imparted the proper impulse in this direction.

[PLATE: THE COMMEMORATION OF THE RUDOLPHINE TABLES.]

When Kepler was twenty-six he married an heiress from Styria, who, though only twenty-three years old, had already had some experience in matrimony. Her first husband had died; and it was after her second husband had divorced her that she received the addresses of Kepler. It will not be surprising to hear that his domestic affairs do not appear to have been particularly happy, and his wife died in 1611. Two years later, undeterred by the want of success in his first venture, he sought a second partner, and he evidently determined not to make a mistake this time. Indeed, the methodical manner in which he made his choice of the lady to whom he should propose has been duly set forth by him and preserved for our edification. With some self-a.s.surance he a.s.serts that there were no fewer than eleven spinsters desirous of sharing his joys and sorrows. He has carefully estimated and recorded the merits and demerits of each of these would-be brides. The result of his deliberations was that he awarded himself to an orphan girl, dest.i.tute even of a portion. Success attended his choice, and his second marriage seems to have proved a much more suitable union than his first. He had five children by the first wife and seven by the second.

The years of Kepler's middle life were sorely distracted by a trouble which, though not uncommon in those days, is one which we find it difficult to realise at the present time. His mother, Catherine Kepler, had attained undesirable notoriety by the suspicion that she was guilty of witchcraft. Years were spent in legal investigations, and it was only after unceasing exertions on the part of the astronomer for upwards of a twelve-month that he was finally able to procure her acquittal and release from prison.

It is interesting for us to note that at one time there was a proposal that Kepler should forsake his native country and adopt England as a home. It arose in this wise. The great man was distressed throughout the greater part of his life by pecuniary anxieties. Finding him in a strait of this description, the English amba.s.sador in Venice, Sir Henry Wotton, in the year 1620, besought Kepler to come over to England, where he a.s.sured him that he would obtain a favourable reception, and where, he was able to add, Kepler's great scientific work was already highly esteemed. But his efforts were unavailing; Kepler would not leave his own country. He was then forty-nine years of age, and doubtless a home in a foreign land, where people spoke a strange tongue, had not sufficient attraction for him, even when accompanied with the substantial inducements which the amba.s.sador was able to offer. Had Kepler accepted this invitation, he would, in transferring his home to England, have antic.i.p.ated the similar change which took place in the career of another great astronomer two centuries later. It will be remembered that Herschel, in his younger days, did transfer himself to England, and thus gave to England the imperishable fame of a.s.sociation with his triumphs.

The publication of the Rudolphine tables of the celestial movements entailed much expense. A considerable part of this was defrayed by the Government at Venice but the balance occasioned no little trouble and anxiety to Kepler. No doubt the authorities of those days were even less willing to spend money on scientific matters than are the Governments of more recent times. For several years the imperial Treasury was importuned to relieve him from his anxieties. The effects of so much worry, and of the long journeys which were involved, at last broke down Kepler's health completely. As we have already mentioned, he had never been strong from infancy, and he finally succ.u.mbed to a fever in November, 1630, at the age of fifty-nine. He was interred at St. Peter's Church at Ratisbon.

Though Kepler had not those personal characteristics which have made his great predecessor, Tycho Brahe, such a romantic figure, yet a picturesque element in Kepler's character is not wanting. It was, however, of an intellectual kind. His imagination, as well as his reasoning faculties, always worked together. He was incessantly prompted by the most extraordinary speculations. The great majority of them were in a high degree wild and chimerical, but every now and then one of his fancies struck right to the heart of nature, and an immortal truth was brought to light.

I remember visiting the observatory of one of our greatest modern astronomers, and in a large desk he showed me a mult.i.tude of photographs which he had attempted but which had not been successful, and then he showed me the few and rare pictures which had succeeded, and by which important truths had been revealed. With a felicity of expression which I have often since thought of, he alluded to the contents of the desk as the "chips." They were useless, but they were necessary incidents in the truly successful work. So it is in all great and good work. Even the most skilful man of science pursues many a wrong scent. Time after time he goes off on some track that plays him false. The greater the man's genius and intellectual resource, the more numerous will be the ventures which he makes, and the great majority of those ventures are certain to be fruitless. They are in fact, the "chips." In Kepler's case the chips were numerous enough. They were of the most extraordinary variety and structure. But every now and then a sublime discovery was made of such a character as to make us regard even the most fantastic of Kepler's chips with the greatest veneration and respect.

ISAAC NEWTON.

It was just a year after the death of Galileo, that an infant came into the world who was christened Isaac Newton. Even the great fame of Galileo himself must be relegated to a second place in comparison with that of the philosopher who first expounded the true theory of the universe.

Isaac Newton was born on the 25th of December (old style), 1642, at Woolsthorpe, in Lincolnshire, about a half-mile from Colsterworth, and eight miles south of Grantham. His father, Mr. Isaac Newton, had died a few months after his marriage to Harriet Ayscough, the daughter of Mr. James Ayscough, of Market Overton, in Rutlandshire.

The little Isaac was at first so excessively frail and weakly that his life was despaired of. The watchful mother, however, tended her delicate child with such success that he seems to have thriven better than might have been expected from the circ.u.mstances of his infancy, and he ultimately acquired a frame strong enough to outlast the ordinary span of human life.

For three years they continued to live at Woolsthorpe, the widow's means of livelihood being supplemented by the income from another small estate at Sewstern, in a neighbouring part of Leicestershire.

[PLATE: WOOLSTHORPE MANOR.

Showing solar dial made by Newton when a boy.]

In 1645, Mrs. Newton took as a second husband the Rev. Barnabas Smith, and on moving to her new home, about a mile from Woolsthorpe, she entrusted little Isaac to her mother, Mrs. Ayscough. In due time we find that the boy was sent to the public school at Grantham, the name of the master being Stokes. For the purpose of being near his work, the embryo philosopher was boarded at the house of Mr.

Clark, an apothecary at Grantham. We learn from Newton himself that at first he had a very low place in the cla.s.s lists of the school, and was by no means one of those model school-boys who find favour in the eyes of the school-master by attention to Latin grammar. Isaac's first incentive to diligent study seems to have been derived from the circ.u.mstance that he was severely kicked by one of the boys who was above him in the cla.s.s. This indignity had the effect of stimulating young Newton's activity to such an extent that he not only attained the desired object of pa.s.sing over the head of the boy who had maltreated him, but continued to rise until he became the head of the school.

The play-hours of the great philosopher were devoted to pursuits very different from those of most school-boys. His chief amus.e.m.e.nt was found in making mechanical toys and various ingenious contrivances.

He watched day by day with great interest the workmen engaged in constructing a windmill in the neighbourhood of the school, the result of which was that the boy made a working model of the windmill and of its machinery, which seems to have been much admired, as indicating his apt.i.tude for mechanics. We are told that Isaac also indulged in somewhat higher flights of mechanical enterprise. He constructed a carriage, the wheels of which were to be driven by the hands of the occupant, while the first philosophical instrument he made was a clock, which was actuated by water. He also devoted much attention to the construction of paper kites, and his skill in this respect was highly appreciated by his school-fellows. Like a true philosopher, even at this stage he experimented on the best methods of attaching the string, and on the proportions which the tail ought to have. He also made lanthorns of paper to provide himself with light as he walked to school in the dark winter mornings.

The only love affair in Newton's life appears to have commenced while he was still of tender years. The incidents are thus described in Brewster's "Life of Newton," a work to which I am much indebted in this chapter.

"In the house where he lodged there were some female inmates, in whose company he appears to have taken much pleasure. One of these, a Miss Storey, sister to Dr. Storey, a physician at Buckminster, near Colsterworth, was two or three years younger than Newton and to great personal attractions she seems to have added more than the usual allotment of female talent. The society of this young lady and her companions was always preferred to that of his own school-fellows, and it was one of his most agreeable occupations to construct for them little tables and cupboards, and other utensils for holding their dolls and their trinkets. He had lived nearly six years in the same house with Miss Storey, and there is reason to believe that their youthful friendship gradually rose to a higher pa.s.sion; but the smallness of her portion, and the inadequacy of his own fortune, appear to have prevented the consummation of their happiness. Miss Storey was afterwards twice married, and under the name of Mrs.

Vincent, Dr. Stukeley visited her at Grantham in 1727, at the age of eighty-two, and obtained from her many particulars respecting the early history of our author. Newton's esteem for her continued unabated during his life. He regularly visited her when he went to Lincolnshire, and never failed to relieve her from little pecuniary difficulties which seem to have beset her family."

The schoolboy at Grantham was only fourteen years of age when his mother became a widow for the second time. She then returned to the old family home at Woolsthorpe, bringing with her the three children of her second marriage. Her means appear to have been somewhat scanty, and it was consequently thought necessary to recall Isaac from the school. His recently-born industry had been such that he had already made good progress in his studies, and his mother hoped that he would now lay aside his books, and those silent meditations to which, even at this early age, he had become addicted. It was expected that, instead of such pursuits, which were deemed quite useless, the boy would enter busily into the duties of the farm and the details of a country life. But before long it became manifest that the study of nature and the pursuit of knowledge had such a fascination for the youth that he could give little attention to aught else. It was plain that he would make but an indifferent farmer. He greatly preferred experimenting on his water-wheels to looking after labourers, while he found that working at mathematics behind a hedge was much more interesting than chaffering about the price of bullocks in the market place. Fortunately for humanity his mother, like a wise woman, determined to let her boy's genius have the scope which it required. He was accordingly sent back to Grantham school, with the object of being trained in the knowledge which would fit him for entering the University of Cambridge.

[PLATE: TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE.

Showing Newton's rooms; on the leads of the gateway he placed his telescope.]

It was the 5th of June, 1660, when Isaac Newton, a youth of eighteen, was enrolled as an undergraduate of Trinity College, Cambridge.

Little did those who sent him there dream that this boy was destined to be the most ill.u.s.trious student who ever entered the portals of that great seat of learning. Little could the youth himself have foreseen that the rooms near the gateway which he occupied would acquire a celebrity from the fact that he dwelt in them, or that the ante-chapel of his college was in good time to be adorned by that n.o.ble statue, which is regarded as one of the chief art treasures of Cambridge University, both on account of its intrinsic beauty and the fact that it commemorates the fame of her most distinguished alumnus, Isaac Newton, the immortal astronomer. Indeed, his advent at the University seemed to have been by no means auspicious or brilliant.

His birth was, as we have seen, comparatively obscure, and though he had already given indication of his capacity for reflecting on philosophical matters, yet he seems to have been but ill-equipped with the routine knowledge which youths are generally expected to take with them to the Universities.

From the outset of his college career, Newton's attention seems to have been mainly directed to mathematics. Here he began to give evidence of that marvellous insight into the deep secrets of nature which more than a century later led so dispa.s.sionate a judge as Laplace to p.r.o.nounce Newton's immortal work as pre-eminent above all the productions of the human intellect. But though Newton was one of the very greatest mathematicians that ever lived, he was never a mathematician for the mere sake of mathematics. He employed his mathematics as an instrument for discovering the laws of nature. His industry and genius soon brought him under the notice of the University authorities. It is stated in the University records that he obtained a Scholarship in 1664. Two years later we find that Newton, as well as many residents in the University, had to leave Cambridge temporarily on account of the breaking out of the plague.

The philosopher retired for a season to his old home at Woolsthorpe, and there he remained until he was appointed a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1667. From this time onwards, Newton's reputation as a mathematician and as a natural philosopher steadily advanced, so that in 1669, while still but twenty-seven years of age, he was appointed to the distinguished position of Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge. Here he found the opportunity to continue and develop that marvellous career of discovery which formed his life's work.

The earliest of Newton's great achievements in natural philosophy was his detection of the composite character of light. That a beam of ordinary sunlight is, in fact, a mixture of a very great number of different-coloured lights, is a doctrine now familiar to every one who has the slightest education in physical science. We must, however, remember that this discovery was really a tremendous advance in knowledge at the time when Newton announced it.

[PLATE: DIAGRAM OF A SUNBEAM.]

We here give the little diagram originally drawn by Newton, to explain the experiment by which he first learned the composition of light. A sunbeam is admitted into a darkened room through an opening, H, in a shutter. This beam when not interfered with will travel in a straight line to the screen, and there reproduce a bright spot of the same shape as the hole in the shutter. If, however, a prism of gla.s.s, A B C, be introduced so that the beam traverse it, then it will be seen at once that the light is deflected from its original track. There is, however, a further and most important change which takes place. The spot of light is not alone removed to another part of the screen, but it becomes spread out into a long band beautifully coloured, and exhibiting the hues of the rainbow. At the top are the violet rays, and then in descending order we have the indigo, blue, green, yellow, orange, and red.

The circ.u.mstance in this phenomenon which appears to have particularly arrested Newton's attention, was the elongation which the luminous spot underwent in consequence of its pa.s.sage through the prism. When the prism was absent the spot was nearly circular, but when the prism was introduced the spot was about five times as long as it was broad. To ascertain the explanation of this was the first problem to be solved. It seemed natural to suppose that it might be due to the thickness of the gla.s.s in the prism which the light traversed, or to the angle of incidence at which the light fell upon the prism. He found, however, upon careful trial, that the phenomenon could not be thus accounted for. It was not until after much patient labour that the true explanation dawned upon him. He discovered that though the beam of white light looks so pure and so simple, yet in reality it is composed of differently coloured lights blended together. These are, of course, indistinguishable in the compound beam, but they are separated or disentangled, so to speak, by the action of the prism. The rays at the blue end of the spectrum are more powerfully deflected by the action of the gla.s.s than are the rays at the red end. Thus, the rays variously coloured red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet, are each conducted to a different part of the screen. In this way the prism has the effect of exhibiting the const.i.tution of the composite beam of light.

To us this now seems quite obvious, but Newton did not adopt it hastily. With characteristic caution he verified the explanation by many different experiments, all of which confirmed his discovery. One of these may be mentioned. He made a hole in the screen at that part on which the violet rays fell. Thus a violet ray was allowed to pa.s.s through, all the rest of the light being intercepted, and on this beam so isolated he was able to try further experiments. For instance, when he interposed another prism in its path, he found, as he expected, that it was again deflected, and he measured the amount of the deflection. Again he tried the same experiment with one of the red rays from the opposite end of the coloured band. He allowed it to pa.s.s through the same aperture in the screen, and he tested the amount by which the second prism was capable of producing deflection.

He thus found, as he had expected to find, that the second prism was more efficacious in bending the violet rays than in bending the red rays. Thus he confirmed the fact that the various hues of the rainbow were each bent by a prism to a different extent, violet being acted upon the most, and red the least.

[PLATE: ISAAC NEWTON.]

Not only did Newton decompose a white beam into its const.i.tuent colours, but conversely by interposing a second prism with its angle turned upwards, he reunited the different colours, and thus reproduced the original beam of white light. In several other ways also he ill.u.s.trated his famous proposition, which then seemed so startling, that white light was the result of a mixture of all hues of the rainbow. By combining painters' colours in the right proportion he did not indeed succeed in producing a mixture which would ordinarily be called white, but he obtained a grey pigment.

Some of this he put on the floor of his room for comparison with a piece of white paper. He allowed a beam of bright sunlight to fall upon the paper and the mixed colours side by side, and a friend he called in for his opinion p.r.o.nounced that under these circ.u.mstances the mixed colours looked the whiter of the two.

By repeated demonstrations Newton thus established his great discovery of the composite character of light. He at once perceived that his researches had an important bearing upon the principles involved in the construction of a telescope. Those who employed the telescope for looking at the stars, had been long aware of the imperfections which prevented all the various rays from being conducted to the same focus. But this imperfection had hitherto been erroneously accounted for. It had been supposed that the reason why success had not been attained in the construction of a refracting telescope was due to the fact that the object gla.s.s, made as it then was of a single piece, had not been properly shaped. Mathematicians had abundantly demonstrated that a single lens, if properly figured, must conduct all rays of light to the same focus, provided all rays experienced equal refraction in pa.s.sing through the gla.s.s. Until Newton's discovery of the composition of white light, it had been taken for granted that the several rays in a white beam were equally refrangible. No doubt if this had been the case, a perfect telescope could have been produced by properly shaping the object gla.s.s. But when Newton had demonstrated that light was by no means so simple as had been supposed, it became obvious that a satisfactory refracting telescope was an impossibility when only a single object lens was employed, however carefully that lens might have been wrought. Such an objective might, no doubt, be made to conduct any one group of rays of a particular shade to the same focus, but the rays of other colours in the beam of white light must necessarily travel somewhat astray. In this way Newton accounted for a great part of the difficulties which had hitherto beset the attempts to construct a perfect refracting telescope.

We now know how these difficulties can be, to a great extent, overcome, by employing for the objective a composite lens made of two pieces of gla.s.s possessing different qualities. To these achromatic object gla.s.ses, as they are called, the great development of astronomical knowledge, since Newton's time, is due. But it must be remarked that, although the theoretical possibility of constructing an achromatic lens was investigated by Newton, he certainly came to the conclusion that the difficulty could not be removed by employing a composite objective, with two different kinds of gla.s.s. In this his marvellous sagacity in the interpretation of nature seems for once to have deserted him. We can, however, hardly regret that Newton failed to discover the achromatic objective, when we observe that it was in consequence of his deeming an achromatic objective to be impossible that he was led to the invention of the reflecting telescope. Finding, as he believed, that the defects of the telescope could not be remedied by any application of the principle of refraction he was led to look in quite a different direction for the improvement of the tool on which the advancement of astronomy depended. The REFRACTION of light depended as he had found, upon the colour of the light. The laws of REFLECTION were, however, quite independent of the colour. Whether rays be red or green, blue or yellow, they are all reflected in precisely the same manner from a mirror. Accordingly, Newton perceived that if he could construct a telescope the action of which depended upon reflection, instead of upon refraction, the difficulty which had hitherto proved an insuperable obstacle to the improvement of the instrument would be evaded.

[PLATE: SIR ISAAC NEWTON'S LITTLE REFLECTOR.]

For this purpose Newton fashioned a concave mirror from a mixture of copper and tin, a combination which gives a surface with almost the l.u.s.tre of silver. When the light of a star fell upon the surface, an image of the star was produced in the focus of this mirror, and then this image was examined by a magnifying eye-piece. Such is the principle of the famous reflecting telescope which bears the name of Newton. The little reflector which he constructed, represented in the adjoining figure, is still preserved as one of the treasures of the Royal Society. The telescope tube had the very modest dimension of one inch in diameter. It was, however, the precursor of a whole series of magnificent instruments, each outstripping the other in magnitude, until at last the culminating point was attained in 1845, by the construction of Lord Rosse's mammoth reflector of six feet in aperture.

Newton's discovery of the composition of light led to an embittered controversy, which caused no little worry to the great Philosopher.

Some of those who attacked him enjoyed considerable and, it must be admitted, even well-merited repute in the ranks of science. They alleged, however, that the elongation of the coloured band which Newton had noticed was due to this, to that, or to the other--to anything, in fact, rather than to the true cause which Newton a.s.signed. With characteristic patience and love of truth, Newton steadily replied to each such attack. He showed most completely how utterly his adversaries had misunderstood the subject, and how slight indeed was their acquaintance with the natural phenomenon in question. In reply to each point raised, he was ever able to cite fresh experiments and adduce fresh ill.u.s.trations, until at last his opponents retired worsted from the combat.

It has been often a matter for surprise that Newton, throughout his whole career, should have taken so much trouble to expose the errors of those who attacked his views. He used even to do this when it plainly appeared that his adversaries did not understand the subject they were discussing. A philosopher might have said, "I know I am right, and whether others think I am right or not may be a matter of concern to them, but it is certainly not a matter about which I need trouble. If after having been told the truth they elect to remain in error, so much the worse for them; my time can be better employed than in seeking to put such people right." This, however, was not Newton's method. He spent much valuable time in overthrowing objections which were often of a very futile description. Indeed, he suffered a great deal of annoyance from the persistency, and in some cases one might almost say from the rancour, of the attacks which were made upon him. Unfortunately for himself, he did not possess that capacity for sublime indifference to what men may say, which is often the happy possession of intellects greatly inferior to his.

The subject of optics still continuing to engross Newton's attention, he followed up his researches into the structure of the sunbeam by many other valuable investigations in connection with light. Every one has noticed the beautiful colours manifested in a soap-bubble.

Here was a subject which not unnaturally attracted the attention of one who had expounded the colours of the spectrum with such success.

He perceived that similar hues were produced by other thin plates of transparent material besides soap-bubbles, and his ingenuity was sufficient to devise a method by which the thicknesses of the different films could be measured. We can hardly, indeed, say that a like success attended his interpretation of these phenomena to that which had been so conspicuous in his explanation of the spectrum. It implies no disparagement to the sublime genius of Newton to admit that the doctrines he put forth as to the causes of the colours in the soap-bubbles can be no longer accepted. We must remember that Newton was a pioneer in accounting for the physical properties of light. The facts that he established are indeed unquestionable, but the explanations which he was led to offer of some of them are seen to be untenable in the fuller light of our present knowledge.

[PLATE: SIR ISAAC NEWTON'S SUN-DIAL.]