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The Dictator (1854–1870)

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Le Verrier—Magnificent and Detestable Astronomer

Part of the book series: Astrophysics and Space Science Library ((ASSL,volume 397))

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Abstract

Le Verrier succeeded in obtaining excellent instruments for the Paris Observatory and its branch in Marseille, in particular several Foucault reflectors with silverized mirrors, a complete novelty. But astronomers are needed to operate these instruments, and where the problem arose. There would be a veritable train of successive astronomers and calculators at the Observatory.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Bulletin astronomique (1907) 24, pp. 385–395, see p. 385.

  2. 2.

    Périgaud, interview by Bigourdan, BOP, Documents divers sur l’Observatoire de Paris, 1854 –1872, cote 3567(3), folder AP.

  3. 3.

    *Flammarion (1911) pp. 139, 210–211.

  4. 4.

    This is a disputable assertion: Le Verrier could be pleasant and relaxed in private, and was equally disagreeable before and after his illness, which was due not to a disease of the stomach but the liver.

  5. 5.

    *Bertrand, J.: Vie et travaux de Félix Tisserand, Revue Scientifique, 4e série. 13, pp. 65–72, see p. 66 (1900).

  6. 6.

    Advielle, V. (s.d.) Notes sur l’Astronome Leverrier et sur plusieurs autres Astronomes français. BOP, Ms 1027. Delaunay’s testimony, in his 1869 letter to the minister of public instruction, reproduced in Bigourdan (1933) pp. A.30–A.32, is much more severe to Le Verrier, but it cannot be objective knowing the hatred of Delaunay for Le Verrier: “The main features of his character are a boldness and charlatanism that I have never seen elsewhere. Add to this that he lies as easily as he tells the truth, and with an incredible cheek. From a high-handed despotism, unbearable to his inferiors, he passes to an obsequious docility toward those which are above him and from whom he might obtain some favor. He is incredibly cowardly, and when he feels that he is caught he lies prostrate as a dog: but this is only to buy time until the opportunity presents to resume his usual behaviour. At the same time he succeeds through his boldness to intimidate most of those from whom he wants something and over which he has the slightest hold.

    The interest of science means nothing to him. Everything gives way to his immense vanity, to his desire to raise in front of the eyes of the public the pedestal to his person. Nothing can stop him: decrees, regulations, the strict expression of the Emperor’s will, all this he casts aside. He has relied on the extreme kindness of Her Majesty with continuous success during the last 16 years.”

  7. 7.

    *Flammarion (1911) writes p. 144: “He imagined, in order to accelerate the work, to pay three sous [0.15 franc] per star observed at the meridian telescope! But then one was sometimes too fast and the observations lacked the necessary perfection.”

  8. 8.

    Cited by Levert et al. (1977) p. 122.

  9. 9.

    Le Verrier, L. (1994).

  10. 10.

    The franc at this time was worth more than 5 present dollars, and Le Verrier did not pay any rent for his very large apartment. The salary of servants was very low, and one could live comfortably with 7 or 8,000 francs per year. This was the salary of titular astronomers around 1870.

  11. 11.

    Loliée, F. (1907) pp. 361–363.

  12. 12.

    Levert et al. (1977) p. 122.

  13. 13.

    *Flammarion (1911) writes p. 148: “My salary was modest: 50 francs per month the first year, raised to 80 the following January, to 100 at the end of the second year, to 150 after the third one and to 200 after the fourth. Extra hours were added during the winter months, when M. Le Verrier wanted to speed up as much as possible the publication of the Annales de l’Observatoire.”

  14. 14.

    BOP, Documents divers sur l’Observatoire de Paris, 1854–1872, cote 3567(4), folder V.

  15. 15.

    *Flammarion (1911) p. 515.

  16. 16.

    *CRAS 64 (1867) pp. 94–99.

  17. 17.

    See °Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 71 (1910) pp. 282–287.

  18. 18.

    See *Flammarion (1867–1880) Études et lectures sur l’Astronomie, t. 1, Paris, Gauthier-Villars, p. 132.

  19. 19.

    Wolf’s testimony in 1888: see BOP, Documents divers sur l’Observatoire de Paris, 1854–1872, cote 3567(3), folder AP.

  20. 20.

    From Tobin (2003), p. 282. This list was prepared by the commission which examined the directorship of Le Verrier in 1867.

  21. 21.

    Chacornac saw with the reflecting telescope the companion of Sirius, just discovered in the USA: *CRAS 54 (1862) pp. 626-–628; his observations of the Whirpool nebula (M 51) are told by Le Verrier in *CRAS 54 (1862) pp. 888–889 and discussed by Tobin, W., Holberg, J.B.:°J. Astron. Hist. Heritage 11, 107–115(2008); finally, he saw the shadow of Titan on Saturn and sketched the Lyra planetary nebula (NGC 6720): *CRAS 54 (1862) p. 1012.

  22. 22.

    *Flammarion (1911) pp. 157–158.

  23. 23.

    These maps, covering a zone around the ecliptic not the equator, were used by observers searching for minor planets, as they allowed them to be distinguished from stars.

  24. 24.

    Mémoire sur l’état actuel de l’Observatoire impérial (1870), pp. 12–13.

  25. 25.

    *Flammarion (1911) pp. 154–156.

  26. 26.

    *Flammarion, C.: La pluralité des mondes habités. Mallet-Bachelier, Paris (1862).

  27. 27.

    *Flammarion (1911) pp. 210–211.

  28. 28.

    From Tobin (2003), pp. 211–212. The minister would pay when necessary the salaries of other employees that were suppressed by Le Verrier: *Flammarion (1911) p. 515.

  29. 29.

    *CRAS 65 (1867) pp. 292–296

  30. 30.

    Interview by Bigourdan in 1888: BOP, Documents divers sur l’Observatoire de Paris, 1854–1872, cote 3567(3), folder AP.

  31. 31.

    Obituaries by Fraissinet in + La Nature (1873) pp. 358–360 and by Rayet in *La Revue scientifique de France et de l’étranger (1873) 2e série, 12, pp. 334–335.

  32. 32.

    Obituary in °Bulletin Astronomique 24 (1907) pp. 385–395.

  33. 33.

    Obituary by Bigourdan in °Bulletin Astronomique, 2e série 1 (1918) pp. 5–13, with a publication list, and in °Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc. 79, 235–236 (1919).

  34. 34.

    Obituaries in °Bulletin Astronomique 23 (1906) pp. 273–285 and (1908), p. 25 , in Astronomische Nachrichten (1908) p. 4111 and in °Astrophys. J. 25, 53–54 (1907).

  35. 35.

    For more details, see Bigourdan (1931) pp. A.89–A.117 et (1932) pp. A.1–A.35.

  36. 36.

    *Flammarion (1911) pp. 212–213.

  37. 37.

    In truth Flammarion was so little suited to this drudge work, that he was asked to quit the Bureau after 2 years. He already must have been spending a great deal of his time writing his popular works. He would live thereafter by his fertile pen, and was to be by the end of the century the most popular astronomer in France, perhaps even in the world.

  38. 38.

    Its offices are still there, but most of the personnel presently works at the Paris Observatory, in the Institut de Mécanique Céleste et de Calcul des Éphémérides (IMCCE).

  39. 39.

    *CRAS 50 (1860) p. 273; Mathieu’s reply is pp. 348–351.

  40. 40.

    One finds in Le Verrier’s papers for this epoch of the proposal of a decree which would have removed completely from the Bureau des longitudes the redaction of the Connaissance des temps.

  41. 41.

    The position of the Moon with respect to neighboring stars was one of the ways used by sailors to determine time in case of failure of their chronometers, in order to obtain longitude.

  42. 42.

    Cited by Bigourdan (1931) p. A.116. Mathieu, Laugier and his wife Lucie encouraged, in spite of their republican opinions, Delaunay to keep seeing the Emperor, in order to oppose Le Verrier.

  43. 43.

    Rayet, G.: Recherches sur les observations magnétiques à l’Observatoire de Paris de 1667 à 1872, °Ann. OP, Mémoires 13, A*1–A*40 (1876).

  44. 44.

    Observatoire de Paris. Rapport fait en décembre 1869, par M. Le Verrier, Paris, Gauthier-Villars.

  45. 45.

    The 38 cm equatorial of the East tower was then abandoned because of the deficiencies in its objective.

  46. 46.

    Mouchez, E: Rapport annuel sur l’État de l’Observatoire de Paris pour 1879, Gauthier-Villars, Paris, p. 10 (1880) .

  47. 47.

    Mouchez (see preceding note) has therefore forgotten the maps obtained by the Henry brothers. 54 maps were eventually obtained, 36 were left unfinished. We thank William Tobin for this information.

  48. 48.

    See *Secchi (1879) Les étoiles, Paris, G. Baillière, t. 1; his plates VII et VIII are reproduced here as Figs. 5.10 et 5.11.

  49. 49.

    Secchi invited Janssen, who was visiting Italy, to install his spectroscopes at the focus of the 24-cm aperture refractor of his observatory. They observed together the spectra of many stars, but eventually Secchi alone published the results, but in a German journal, because he did not dare to publish them in Italy or in France. Janssen was furious to see himself dispossessed in this way: see Launay (2008) pp. 35–41.

  50. 50.

    *Annalen der Physik und der Chemie 110 (1860) p. 161.

  51. 51.

    Huggins’s founding papers are in Phil. Trans. 154, 413–435 et 437–444(1864); 156, 381–397 (1866), and in *Proc. R. Soc. 14, 39–42 (1865).

  52. 52.

    See °The Observatory (1877) 1, pp. 4–8 and *Phil. Trans. 171, 669–690 (1880) and plate 33.

  53. 53.

    For the subject of this section, see *Le Verrier U.J.J., 1853. Mesure de la vitesse de la lumière dans le ciel et à la surface de la terre. – Conséquences pour le système du monde, L’année scientifique et industrielle, 7e année, pp. 37–54; Tobin, W.: Vistas Astron. 36, 253–294 (1993); Tobin, Chap. 13 (2003); Lequeux Chap. 5 (2008). The methods used by Foucault, Fizeau et Cornu are described in detail in the three last references.

  54. 54.

    More precisely, what is derived from the measurements of gravity and of the radius of the Earth is the product GM E of the mass M E of the Earth by the constant of gravitation G. But these are similar products which intervene everywhere in Le Verrier’s calculations.

  55. 55.

    The original rotating mirror and “clock” are preserved in the Paris Observatory. Several replicas are in existence, in particular in the Musée des arts et métiers/CNAM where the presumably original bellows by Cavaillé-Coll can also be seen.

  56. 56.

    *CRAS 55 (1862) pp. 501–503.

  57. 57.

    This estimate of the precision of the measurement, one of the first in the history of science, is optimistic. The present value of the velocity of light, 299,792,458 m/s, differs by 1,800,000 m/s from that of Foucault.

  58. 58.

    Cited by Tobin (2003) p. 233.

  59. 59.

    *CRAS 14 (1842) pp. 843–861.

  60. 60.

    Arago F. (1851) in *Œuvres complètes de François Arago, ed. par J.-A. Barral, 13 vol., Gide et Leipzig, Weigel, Paris, t. 7, pp. 112–135.

  61. 61.

    Carrington R.C.: Information and Suggestions Addressed to Persons Who May Be Able to Place Themselves Within the Shadow of the Total Eclipse of the Sun, September 7, 1858. Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, London (1858).

  62. 62.

    For details on the expedition, see Tobin (2003), pp. 218–221.

  63. 63.

    For details and pictures of the Siam expedition, see Yvon Georgelin et Simone Arzano (1999) L’Astronomie, n°113, pp. 7–12, Aillaud et al. (2000) t. 3, pp. 47–59, and Stephan (1870) Annales scientifiques de l’École normale supérieure 7, pp. 99–162, accessible by http://www.numdam.org/numdam-bin/item?id=ASENS_1870_1_7__99_0.

  64. 64.

    See *CRAS 68 (1869) pp. 312–314 and 320–321.

  65. 65.

    *CRAS 68 (1869) pp. 314–320.

  66. 66.

    The book of Roseveare (1982), which we have relied on a great deal, is devoted to the advance of Mercury’s perihelion.

  67. 67.

    Le Verrier U.J.-J. (1859), pp. 102–106.

  68. 68.

    *CRAS, 59 (1959) pp. 379–383. This paper is easier to follow than that in Ann. OP.

  69. 69.

    Le Verrier’s doubts are confirmed by Simon Newcomb: °Astron. J 6, pp. 162–163 (1860) . But Newcomb has also doubts about the asteroid belt which would produce the same effect.

  70. 70.

    This letter, dated 22 December 1859, is reproduced by Le Verrier with history and commentaries in *CRAS, 50 (1860) pp. 40–46 and in °Ann. OP, Mémoires 5, pp. 394–399 (erroneously dated 1860 in the latter article). The history of Vulcan is the subject of the of Baum and Sheehan (1997).

  71. 71.

    There was already a Vulcan! Babinet had suggested that a big prominence seen on the edge of the Sun during the total eclipse of 8 July 1842 was a mass of gas orbiting around the Sun and called it Vulcan: *CRAS, 22 (1846) pp. 281–286. But this was soon forgotten.

  72. 72.

    *Flammarion (1911) pp. 188–190.

  73. 73.

    This displacement was very probably due to the apparent rotation of the solar disk as seen in the alt-azimuthal mount of Lescarbault’s telescope. However there are contradictions: in the drawing given by Baum and Sheehan (1997) p. 184, the displacement of the sunspot is inverted with respect to the expected one, unless Lescarbault had taken West for East because of the reversal of the image in the telescope. Flammarion writes that the observation took place in the morning, while the letter of Lescarbault to Le Verrier mentions the afternoon. Nothing is certain in this story.

  74. 74.

    °Monthly Notices of the Royal astronomical Society 50 (1860) pp. 98–100.

  75. 75.

    Liais E.: Sur la nouvelle planète annoncée par M. Lescarbault, °Astronomische Nachrichten 52, 369–378 (1860).

  76. 76.

    *CRAS 53 (1861) pp. 950–955.

  77. 77.

    *CRAS 54 (1862) pp. 77–82

  78. 78.

    *CRAS 54 (1862) pp. 82–99.

  79. 79.

    Newcomb S. (1882) Discussion and results of observations on transits of Mercury from 1677 to 1881. US Nautical Almanac Office, Astronomical papers, 1, Washington, U.S. Nautical Almanac Office, pp. 363–487.

  80. 80.

    *CRAS 52 (1861) pp. 1106–1112.

  81. 81.

    See *CRAS 83 (1876) pp. 583–589, 621–624 et 719–723. Still in 1880, Tisserand publishes a “Notice sur les planètes intra-mercurielles” (Annu. BdL pour (1882), pp. 729–772) where he reminds the reader about the history of Vucain and recommends to continue the observations.

  82. 82.

    *CRAS 83 (1876) pp. 647–655.

  83. 83.

    One can be certain at present that no asteroid with a diameter larger than 60 km circulates between the Sun and Mercury.

  84. 84.

    See Roseveare (1982) for a good discussion. The original papers of Einstein are often difficult to understand, and the problem of Mercury’s perihelion is treated more clearly there than in many textbooks about general relativity.

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    James Lequeux

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Lequeux, J. (2013). The Dictator (1854–1870). In: Le Verrier—Magnificent and Detestable Astronomer. Astrophysics and Space Science Library, vol 397. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-5565-3_5

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