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Simon Newcomb
Times obituary
We regret to announce the death of the distinguished American astronomer, Professor Simon Newcomb, which occurred in Washington yesterday.
Simon Newcomb was born at Wallace, Nova Scotia, on March 12, 1835, but he migrated to the United States when he was a youth of 18. He had been educated by his father, who was a schoolmaster, and he himself acted as a teacher in Maryland from 1854 to 1856. His mathematical abilities gained him a position as naval computer to the American Nautical Almanac at Cambridge in 1857, and in 1858 he graduated from the Lawrence Scientific School of Harvard University. Three years later he was appointed Professor of Mathematics in the United States Navy, and as astronomer at the naval observatory at Washington he was put in charge of the great 26-inch equatorial telescope, which was erected there under his supervision in 1873. He became Director of the Nautical Almanac in 1877, holding that office until 1897, when he retired on account of the age limit, and from 1884 to 1893 he was also Professor of Mathematics and Astronomy at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.
Newcomb's work was especially concerned with the problems of gravitational astronomy. One of his earliest original papers was an important contribution to the memoirs of the American Academy on the secular variations and mutual relations of the orbits of the asteroids roids, in which he discussed the principal hypotheses put forward as to the origin of those bodies. A few years later he investigated the orbit of Neptune, publishing general tables of the motion of the planet in 1867; and in 1874 he did the same for Uranus. One of the first uses to which he put the Washington telescope was the observation of the satellites of those two planets; and at different times he also paid special attention to the study of the satellites of Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn, one of his most remarkable papers dealing with the motion of Hyperion, a satellite of the last- named planet. Lunar theory was another subject to which he devoted much labour. The tables of the moon published by Hansen about the middle of the last century were for a time supposed to afford the means of accurately fixing its position; but Newcomb showed that this was not the case. In his "Researches on the Motion of the Moon" (1878) he made an exhaustive examination of the eclipses recorded by Ptolemy in the Almagest and by Arabian and later astronomers down to 1750; and the general conclusion at which he ultimately arrived was that either the effect of the gravitation of other bodies on the moon has not yet been exactly computed, or its motion is affected by causes other than gravitation. In this connection he investigated the suggestion that the apparent variations in the lunar motions are due to changes in the rate of the Earth's rotation, but finally decided from an examination of the transits of Mercury since 1677 that this idea is not tenable.
From 1871 to 1874 he was secretary of the United States Commission for observing the transit of Venus in the latter year, and in 1882 he observed the transit of that body at the Cape; he also discussed the transits of 1761 and 1769 in order to determine the distance of the Earth from the sun by deducing from them the solar parallax. With the same object, at the instance of the Secretary of the Navy, he undertook a measurement of the velocity of light in 1880-1882, when, using Foucault's method and placing his fixed and revolving mirrors over two miles apart on opposite sides of the Potomac River at Washington, he obtained the value 299,860 kilometers a second. His work in connection with the sun also included the direction of several eclipse expeditions, and in 1879 he published a paper on the occurrence of solar eclipses from 1880 to 1882. 700 to A.D. 2300. When in 1877 he became Director of the Nautical Almanac there was considerable discrepancy between the fundamental astronomical elements employed by different astronomists; and, recognizing the disadvantages which arose from that state of things, he resolved to devote his energies to the task of deriving improved values and of embodying them in new tables of the celestial motions. The results of this laborious undertaking, which occupied him for the next 20 years, were mostly published in the "Astronomical Papers of the American Ephemeris," which he founded, and they have been widely adopted as standards all over the world. In 1899 he also published a new catalogue of standard stars, which he agreed to draw up at the request of the international conference that assembled in Paris in 1896. Another question to which he made important contributions is that of the variation of latitude, or, in other words, the shifting of the Earth's axis of rotation Euler had calculated that if any such shifting did occur, it must have a period of ten months; but, as they could not detect any period of this length, astronomers generally concluded that there was no shifting. When, therefore, Chandler perceived a movement of the poles, having a period, however, not of ten, but of about 14 months, his observations were discredited because they did not fit in with Euler's calculations; and it was Newcomb who pointed out that Euler had treated the earth as a rigid body, whereas if it was regarded as subject to elastic yielding, as required on other grounds, then Chandler's observations were quite reconcilable with theory.
In addition to this and other work in astronomical theory, Newcomb wrote a number of books of a more popular and educational character. The first of these was his "Popular Astronomy," which was first published in 1878 and has gone through several editions. It was followed in 1880 by "Astronomy for Schools and Colleges," written in conjunction with Dr. E. S. Holden. His "Elements of Astronomy" came ten years later, and in 1901 he published "The Stars," in 1903 "Astronomy for Everybody," and in 1908 "Spherical Astronomy." He was also the author of several astronomical articles in the "Encyclopedia Britannica." Besides his astronomical works, he wrote several textbooks on algebra and geometry, and he also made excursions into the domains of finance and economics, producing "The ABC of Finance" in 1877, "A Plain Man's Talk on the Labor Question" in 1886, and "The Principles of Political Economy" in 1887. A number of his contributions to periodical literature on astronomical and other scientific topics were reprinted in "Side Lights on Astronomy" in 1906, and in 1903 he published the "Reminiscences of an Astronomer."
Newcomb's astronomical attainments brought him many distinctions. He received honorary degrees from nearly a score of universities, including Edinburgh, Dublin, Glasgow, Cambridge, and Oxford, and he was an honorary or corresponding member of most of the chief astronomical and mathematical societies in the world The Royal Astronomical Society gave him its gold medal in 1874 for his tables of the motions of Neptune and Uranus. He received the Huygens medal of the Haarlem Academy of Sciences in 1878, and the Royal Society, which had elected him a foreign member in 1877, awarded him the medal in 1890. He became a corresponding member of the Institute of France in 1874, and in 1893 he was chosen one of its eight foreign associates. France made him an officer of the Legion of Honour in 1893 and a commander in 1907, and he received the Prussian Order Pour le Mérite in 1906. At various times he served as president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Mathematical Society, the Astronomical and Astrophysical Society of America, the Political Society of America, and the Society for Psychical Research, and for a number of years he was editor of the American Journal of Mathematics.
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Our New York Correspondent telegraphs that Professor Newcomb's death was caused by cancer of the bladder. Symptoms of the disease appeared last September, and Professor Newcomb, realizing that he had not long to live, devoted all his remaining energies to the completion of his work "The Motion of the Moon." He concluded his task a few weeks ago. He was recognized as the most eminent man of science in America.
We regret to announce the death of the distinguished American astronomer, Professor Simon Newcomb, which occurred in Washington yesterday.
Simon Newcomb was born at Wallace, Nova Scotia, on March 12, 1835, but he migrated to the United States when he was a youth of 18. He had been educated by his father, who was a schoolmaster, and he himself acted as a teacher in Maryland from 1854 to 1856. His mathematical abilities gained him a position as naval computer to the American Nautical Almanac at Cambridge in 1857, and in 1858 he graduated from the Lawrence Scientific School of Harvard University. Three years later he was appointed Professor of Mathematics in the United States Navy, and as astronomer at the naval observatory at Washington he was put in charge of the great 26-inch equatorial telescope, which was erected there under his supervision in 1873. He became Director of the Nautical Almanac in 1877, holding that office until 1897, when he retired on account of the age limit, and from 1884 to 1893 he was also Professor of Mathematics and Astronomy at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.
Newcomb's work was especially concerned with the problems of gravitational astronomy. One of his earliest original papers was an important contribution to the memoirs of the American Academy on the secular variations and mutual relations of the orbits of the asteroids roids, in which he discussed the principal hypotheses put forward as to the origin of those bodies. A few years later he investigated the orbit of Neptune, publishing general tables of the motion of the planet in 1867; and in 1874 he did the same for Uranus. One of the first uses to which he put the Washington telescope was the observation of the satellites of those two planets; and at different times he also paid special attention to the study of the satellites of Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn, one of his most remarkable papers dealing with the motion of Hyperion, a satellite of the last- named planet. Lunar theory was another subject to which he devoted much labour. The tables of the moon published by Hansen about the middle of the last century were for a time supposed to afford the means of accurately fixing its position; but Newcomb showed that this was not the case. In his "Researches on the Motion of the Moon" (1878) he made an exhaustive examination of the eclipses recorded by Ptolemy in the Almagest and by Arabian and later astronomers down to 1750; and the general conclusion at which he ultimately arrived was that either the effect of the gravitation of other bodies on the moon has not yet been exactly computed, or its motion is affected by causes other than gravitation. In this connection he investigated the suggestion that the apparent variations in the lunar motions are due to changes in the rate of the Earth's rotation, but finally decided from an examination of the transits of Mercury since 1677 that this idea is not tenable.
From 1871 to 1874 he was secretary of the United States Commission for observing the transit of Venus in the latter year, and in 1882 he observed the transit of that body at the Cape; he also discussed the transits of 1761 and 1769 in order to determine the distance of the Earth from the sun by deducing from them the solar parallax. With the same object, at the instance of the Secretary of the Navy, he undertook a measurement of the velocity of light in 1880-1882, when, using Foucault's method and placing his fixed and revolving mirrors over two miles apart on opposite sides of the Potomac River at Washington, he obtained the value 299,860 kilometers a second. His work in connection with the sun also included the direction of several eclipse expeditions, and in 1879 he published a paper on the occurrence of solar eclipses from 1880 to 1882. 700 to A.D. 2300. When in 1877 he became Director of the Nautical Almanac there was considerable discrepancy between the fundamental astronomical elements employed by different astronomists; and, recognizing the disadvantages which arose from that state of things, he resolved to devote his energies to the task of deriving improved values and of embodying them in new tables of the celestial motions. The results of this laborious undertaking, which occupied him for the next 20 years, were mostly published in the "Astronomical Papers of the American Ephemeris," which he founded, and they have been widely adopted as standards all over the world. In 1899 he also published a new catalogue of standard stars, which he agreed to draw up at the request of the international conference that assembled in Paris in 1896. Another question to which he made important contributions is that of the variation of latitude, or, in other words, the shifting of the Earth's axis of rotation Euler had calculated that if any such shifting did occur, it must have a period of ten months; but, as they could not detect any period of this length, astronomers generally concluded that there was no shifting. When, therefore, Chandler perceived a movement of the poles, having a period, however, not of ten, but of about 14 months, his observations were discredited because they did not fit in with Euler's calculations; and it was Newcomb who pointed out that Euler had treated the earth as a rigid body, whereas if it was regarded as subject to elastic yielding, as required on other grounds, then Chandler's observations were quite reconcilable with theory.
In addition to this and other work in astronomical theory, Newcomb wrote a number of books of a more popular and educational character. The first of these was his "Popular Astronomy," which was first published in 1878 and has gone through several editions. It was followed in 1880 by "Astronomy for Schools and Colleges," written in conjunction with Dr. E. S. Holden. His "Elements of Astronomy" came ten years later, and in 1901 he published "The Stars," in 1903 "Astronomy for Everybody," and in 1908 "Spherical Astronomy." He was also the author of several astronomical articles in the "Encyclopedia Britannica." Besides his astronomical works, he wrote several textbooks on algebra and geometry, and he also made excursions into the domains of finance and economics, producing "The ABC of Finance" in 1877, "A Plain Man's Talk on the Labor Question" in 1886, and "The Principles of Political Economy" in 1887. A number of his contributions to periodical literature on astronomical and other scientific topics were reprinted in "Side Lights on Astronomy" in 1906, and in 1903 he published the "Reminiscences of an Astronomer."
Newcomb's astronomical attainments brought him many distinctions. He received honorary degrees from nearly a score of universities, including Edinburgh, Dublin, Glasgow, Cambridge, and Oxford, and he was an honorary or corresponding member of most of the chief astronomical and mathematical societies in the world The Royal Astronomical Society gave him its gold medal in 1874 for his tables of the motions of Neptune and Uranus. He received the Huygens medal of the Haarlem Academy of Sciences in 1878, and the Royal Society, which had elected him a foreign member in 1877, awarded him the medal in 1890. He became a corresponding member of the Institute of France in 1874, and in 1893 he was chosen one of its eight foreign associates. France made him an officer of the Legion of Honour in 1893 and a commander in 1907, and he received the Prussian Order Pour le Mérite in 1906. At various times he served as president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Mathematical Society, the Astronomical and Astrophysical Society of America, the Political Society of America, and the Society for Psychical Research, and for a number of years he was editor of the American Journal of Mathematics.
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Our New York Correspondent telegraphs that Professor Newcomb's death was caused by cancer of the bladder. Symptoms of the disease appeared last September, and Professor Newcomb, realizing that he had not long to live, devoted all his remaining energies to the completion of his work "The Motion of the Moon." He concluded his task a few weeks ago. He was recognized as the most eminent man of science in America.
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