New Lands | Page 8

in England--
Monthly Notices, R.A.S.' 28-32:
Report by E.J. Lowe, Highfield House, night of Nov. 13-14, 1867:
"Clear at 1.10 A.M.; high, thin cumuli, at 2 A.M., but sky not covered until 3.10 A.M., and the moon's place visible until 3.55 A.M.; sky not overcast until 5.50 A.M."
The determination of the orbital period of thirty-three years and a quarter, but with appearances of a period of thirty-three years, was arrived at by Prof. Newton by searching old records, finding that, in an intersection-period of thirty-three years, there had been extraordinary meteoric displays, from the year 902 A.D. to the year 1833 A.D. He reminds me of an investigator who searched old records for appearances of Halley's comet, and found something that he identified as Halley's comet, exactly on time, every seventy-five years back to times of the Roman Empire. See the Edinburgh Review, vol. 66. It seems that he did not know that orthodoxy does not attribute exactly a seventy-five year period to Halley's comet. He got what he went looking for, anyway. I have no disposition for us to enjoy ourselves at Prof. Newton's expense, because, surely enough, his method, if regarded as only experimental, or tentative, is legitimate enough, though one does suspect him of very loose behavior in his picking and choosing. But Dr. Adams announced that, upon mathematical grounds, he had arrived at the same conclusion.
The test:
The next return of the Leonids was predicted for November, 1899.
Memoirs of the British Astronomical Association, 9-6:
"No meteoric event ever before aroused such widespread interest, or so grievously disappointed anticipation."
There were no Leonids in November, 1899.
It was explained. They would be seen next year.
There were no Leonids in November, 1900.
It was explained. They would be seen next year.
No Leonids.
Vaunt and inflation and parade of the symbols of the infinitesimal calculus; the pomp of vectors, and the hush that surrounds quaternions: but when an axis of co-ordinates loses its rectitude, in the service of a questionable selection, disciplined symbols become a rabble. The Most High of Mathematics--and one of his supposed prophets points to the sky. Nowhere near where he points, something is found. He points to a date--nothing happens.
Prof. Serviss, in Astronomy in a Nutshell, explains. He explains that the Leonids did not appear when they should have appeared, because Jupiter and Saturn had altered their orbits.
Back in the times of the Crusades, and nothing was disturbing the Leonids--and if you're stronger for dates than I am, think of some more dates, and nothing was altering the orbit of the Leonids--discovery of America, and the Spanish Armada, in 1588, which, by some freak, I always remember, and no effects by Jupiter and Saturn--French revolution and on to the year 1866, and still nothing the matter with the Leonids--but, once removed from "discovery" and "identification," and that's the end of their period, diverted by Jupiter and Saturn, old things that had been up in the sky at least as long as they had been. If we're going to accept the calculi at all, the calculus of probabilities must have a hearing. My own opinion, based upon reading many accounts of November meteors, is that decidedly the display of 1833 did not repeat in 1866: that a false priest sinned and that an equally false highpriest gave him sanction.
The tragedy goes comically on. I feel that, to all good Neo-astronomers, I can recommend the following serenity from an astronomer who was unperturbed by what happened to his science, in November, 1899, and some more Novembers--
Bryant, A History of Astronomy, p. 252:
That the meteoric display of 1899 had failed to appear--"as had been predicted by Dr. Downing and Dr. Johnstone Stoney."
One starts to enjoy this disguisement, thinking of virtually all the astronomers of the world who had predicted the return of the Leonids, and the find, by Bryant, of two who had not, and his recording only the opinion of these two, coloring so as to look like another triumph--but we may thank our sorely stimulated suspiciousness for still richer enjoyment--
That even these two said no such saving thing--
Nature, Nov. 9, 1899:
Dr. Downing and Dr. Stoney, instead of predicting failure of the Leonids to appear, advise watch for them several hours later than had been calculated.
I conceive of the astronomers' fictitious paradise as malarchitectural with corrupted equations, and paved with rotten symbols. Seemingly pure, white fountains of formal vanities--boasts that are gushing from decomposed triumphs. We shall find their furnishings shabby with tarnished comets. We turn expectantly to the subject of comets; or we turn cynically to the subject. We turn maliciously to the subject of comets. Nevertheless, threading the insecurities of our various feelings, is a motif that is the steady essence of Neo-astronomy:
That, in celestial phenomena, as well as in all other fields of research, the irregular, or the unformulable, or the uncapturable, is