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See also:NEWCOMB, See also:SIMON (1835-1909) , See also:American astronomer, was See also:born in See also:Wallace, Nova See also:Scotia, on the 12th of See also:March 1835. He became a See also:resident of the See also:United States in 1853, and graduated at the See also:- LAWRENCE
- LAWRENCE (LAURENTIUS, LORENZO), ST
- LAWRENCE, AMOS (1786—1852)
- LAWRENCE, AMOS ADAMS (1814–1886)
- LAWRENCE, GEORGE ALFRED (1827–1876)
- LAWRENCE, JOHN LAIRD MAIR LAWRENCE, 1ST BARON (1811-1879)
- LAWRENCE, SIR HENRY MONTGOMERY (1806–1857)
- LAWRENCE, SIR THOMAS (1769–1830)
- LAWRENCE, STRINGER (1697–1775)
Lawrence Scientific School of Harvard University in '858, having paid See also:special See also:attention to See also:mathematics and See also:astronomy. He assisted in the preparation of the American Nautical See also:Almanac for 1857. In 1861 he became See also:professor of mathematics in the United States See also:navy, and was put in See also:charge of the See also:great 26-in. See also:equatorial erected at See also:Washington See also:Observatory in 1873. In 1877 he was appointed director of the American Nautical Almanac See also:- OFFICE (from Lat. officium, " duty," " service," a shortened form of opifacium, from facere, " to do," and either the stem of opes, " wealth," " aid," or opus, " work ")
office, a See also:post which he held until March '897. In '884 he became professor of mathematics and astronomy at the Johns See also:Hopkins University, continuing, however, to reside at Washingtion. He was also editor of the American See also:Journal of Mathematics for many years. In view of .the wide extent and importance of his labours, the variety of subjects of which he treats, and the unity of purpose which guided him throughout, Simon Newcomb must be considered as one of the most distinguished astronomers of his See also:- TIME (0. Eng. Lima, cf. Icel. timi, Swed. timme, hour, Dan. time; from the root also seen in " tide," properly the time of between the flow and ebb of the sea, cf. O. Eng. getidan, to happen, " even-tide," &c.; it is not directly related to Lat. tempus)
- TIME, MEASUREMENT OF
- TIME, STANDARD
time. A study of his See also:works reveals an unusual See also:combination of skill and originality in the mathematical treatment of many of the most difficult problems of astronomy, an unfailing See also:patience and sagacity in dealing with immense masses of numerical results, and a See also:- TALENT (Lat. talentum, adaptation of Gr. TaXavrov, balance, ! Recollections of a First Visit to the Alps (1841); Vacation Rambles weight, from root raX-, to lift, as in rXi vac, to bear, 1-aXas, and Thoughts, comprising recollections of three Continental
talent for observation of the highest See also:- ORDER
- ORDER (through Fr. ordre, for earlier ordene, from Lat. ordo, ordinis, rank, service, arrangement; the ultimate source is generally taken to be the root seen in Lat. oriri, rise, arise, begin; cf. " origin ")
- ORDER, HOLY
order. On assuming the directorship of the Nautical Almanac he became very strongly impressed with the diversity existing in the values of the elements and constants of astronomy adopted by different astronomers, and the injurious effect which it exercised on the precision and symmetry of much astronomical See also:work. Accordingly he resolved to " devote all the force which he could spare to the work of deriving improved values of the fundamental elements and embodying them in new tables of the See also:celestial motions." The formation of the tables of a See also:planet has been described by See also:Cayley as " the culminating achievement of astronomy." but the gigantic task which Newcomb laid out for himself, and which he carried on for more than twenty years, was the See also:building up, on an absolutely homogeneous basis, of the theory and tables of the whole planetary See also:system. The results of these investigations have, for the most See also:part, appeared in the Astronomical Papers of the American See also:Ephemeris, and have been more or less completely adopted for use in the nautical almanacs of all countries. A valuable See also:summary of a considerable part of this work, containing an See also:account of the methods adopted, the materials employed, and the resulting values of the various quantities involved, was published in 1895, as a supplement to the American Ephemeris for 1897, entitled The Elements of the Four Inner See also:Planets and the Fundamental Constants of Astronomy. In '866 Newcomb had published' an important memoir on the See also:orbit of See also:Neptune, which was followed in 1873 by a similar investigation of the orbit of See also:Uranus? About twenty-five years later the tables of these planets were revised by him in view of all the observations which had accumulated in the meanwhile at Washington, See also:Greenwich, See also:Paris and See also:Cambridge. In the meantime the theory of See also:Jupiter and See also:Saturn had been thoroughly worked out by G. W. See also:- HILL
- HILL (0. Eng. hyll; cf. Low Ger. hull, Mid. Dutch hul, allied to Lat. celsus, high, collis, hill, &c.)
- HILL, A
- HILL, AARON (1685-175o)
- HILL, AMBROSE POWELL
- HILL, DANIEL HARVEY (1821-1889)
- HILL, DAVID BENNETT (1843–1910)
- HILL, GEORGE BIRKBECK NORMAN (1835-1903)
- HILL, JAMES J
- HILL, JOHN (c. 1716-1775)
- HILL, MATTHEW DAVENPORT (1792-1872)
- HILL, OCTAVIA (1838– )
- HILL, ROWLAND (1744–1833)
- HILL, SIR ROWLAND (1795-1879)
Hill, Newcomb's distinguished collaborator in the Nautical Almanac office, and thus was
' Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge, vol. xv.
2 Ibid. vol. xix.
completed one important See also:section of the work projected by Newcomb in 1877.
Among Newcomb's most notable achievements are his re-searches in connexion with the theory of the See also:- MOON (a common Teutonic word, cf. Ger. Mond, Du. maan, Dan. maane, &c., and cognate with such Indo-Germanic forms as Gr. µlip, Sans. ma's, Irish mi, &c.; Lat. uses luna, i.e. lucna, the shining one, lucere, to shine, for the moon, but preserves the word i
- MOON, SIR RICHARD, 1ST BARONET (1814-1899)
moon's See also:motion. His first work on this abstruse subject, entitled Theorie See also:des perturbations de la lune, qui sont dues d l'See also:action des planetes,' is remarkable for the boldness of its conception, and constitutes an important addition to celestial See also:dynamics. For some years after the publication of See also:Hansen's tables of the moon in 1857 it was generally believed that the theory of that See also:body was at last See also:complete, and that its motion could be predicted as accurately as that of the other heavenly bodies. Newcomb showed that this belief was unfounded, and that as a See also:matter of fact the moon was falling rapidly behind the See also:tabular positions. With the view of examining this question, he undertook the reduction of every observation made before 1750 which appeared to be worthy of confidence. In an elaborate See also:memoirs he showed that the See also:ancient See also:solar eclipses described by See also:Herodotus, See also:Thucydides, and others, which seemed to require an increased value of the See also:secular See also:acceleration of the moon's mean motion to bring them into See also:line with See also:modern results, might safely be neglected, the See also:ambiguity of the accounts in each See also:case rendering uncertain either the totality of the See also:eclipse or the See also:place from which it was visible. In his investigation he employed the eclipses of the moon recorded in the Almagest, the Arabian eclipses between A.D. 800 and 1004, extracted from Caussin's See also:translation of See also:Ibn Junis, the eclipses and occultations of Bullialdus, Gassendi, and See also:Hevelius, of the See also:French astronomers at Paris and St See also:Peters-See also:burg, and of See also:Flamsteed at Greenwich, and deduced a secular acceleration of 8.8", agreeing well with the theoretical value.
On taking charge of the 26-in. equatorial at the United States See also:Naval Observatory, Newcomb devoted it almost exclusively for the first two years to observations of the satellites of Uranus and Neptune, being of See also:opinion that it was better to do one thing well, than many things indifferently. The results of these skilfully conducted observations were published in a memoir on The Uranian and Neptunian Systems.' From this See also:research it appears that the orbits of all four satellites of Uranus are sensibly circular, and although no special See also:search was made, he concludes that none of See also:Sir See also:- WILLIAM
- WILLIAM (1143-1214)
- WILLIAM (1227-1256)
- WILLIAM (1J33-1584)
- WILLIAM (A.S. Wilhelm, O. Norse Vilhidlmr; O. H. Ger. Willahelm, Willahalm, M. H. Ger. Willehelm, Willehalm, Mod.Ger. Wilhelm; Du. Willem; O. Fr. Villalme, Mod. Fr. Guillaume; from " will," Goth. vilja, and " helm," Goth. hilms, Old Norse hidlmr, meaning
- WILLIAM (c. 1130-C. 1190)
- WILLIAM, 13TH
William See also:Herschel's supposed See also:outer satellites can have any real existence. From the motion of the satellites he finds that the See also:mass of Uranus is ,z 2 hnth of that of the See also:sun, while for the planet Neptune he finds a mass equal to 1-g-ig-sth of the sun, agreeing with the value previously found by him from the perturbations of Uranus within - -th of its amount. As See also:early as 186o Newcomb communicated an important memoir to the American See also:Academy,' On the Secular See also:Variations and Mutual Relation of the Orbits of the Asteroids, in which he discussed the two See also:principal hypotheses to account for the origin of these bodies—one, that they are the shattered fragments of a single planet (See also:Olbers' See also:hypothesis), the other, that they have been formed by the breaking up of a revolving See also:ring of nebulous matter.
In the Astronomical Papers of the American Ephemeris will be found a large number of contributions from Newcomb's See also:pen on some fundamental and most important questions of astronomy. Among these are papers on The Recurrence of Solar Eclipses, A Transformation of Hansen's Lunar Theory, Development of the Perturbative See also:Function and its Derivatives. His memoir On the Motion of See also:Hyperion, a New Case in Celestial See also:Mechanics, is in some respects one of his most See also:original researches. He discussed the transits of See also:Venus of 1761 and 1769, and those of See also:Mercury from 1677 to 1881.
At the See also:international See also:conference, which met at Paris in 1896 for the purpose of elaborating a See also:common system of constants and fundamental stars to be employed in the various See also:national ephemerides, Newcomb took a leading part, and at its See also:suggestion undertook the task of deter-See also:mining a definite value of the See also:constant of precession, and of
Liouville, t. xvi. (1871), pp. I-45.
1 Washington Observations, 1875, Appendix II.
a Ibid., 1873, Appendix I.
' Memoirs Amer. Acad. of Arts and Sciences, v. 124-152.compiling a new See also:catalogue of See also:standard stars. The results of these investigations were published in 1899,6 and have been in use since the beginning of 1901. In the intervals of these immense labours, on which his reputation as an astronomer rests, he found leisure for works of a lighter See also:character, e.g. his Popular Astronomy (1878) which has been translated into See also:German, See also:Russian, See also:Norwegian, See also:Czech, Dutch and See also:Japanese, his Astronomy for See also:Schools and Colleges (188o), written in See also:conjunction with Professor E. S. See also:Holden, and Astronomy for Everybody (1903). After his retirement from See also:official See also:life he published an excellent popular See also:treatise on The Stars (1901). A more recondite work is his Compendium of Spherical Astronomy (1906). He also wrote on questions of See also:finance and See also:economics.
He received the honorary degrees of D.C.L. See also:- OXFORD
- OXFORD, EARLS OF
- OXFORD, EDWARD DE VERE, 17TH EARL
- OXFORD, JOHN DE VERE, 13TH EARL OF (1443-1513)
- OXFORD, PROVISIONS OF
- OXFORD, ROBERT DE VERE, 9TH EARL OF (1362-1392)
- OXFORD, ROBERT HARLEY, 1ST
Oxford, and Sc. D. Cambridge and See also:Dublin. In 1872 he was elected an See also:associate of the Royal Astronomical Society, receiving its See also:gold See also:medal in 1874. In 1877 he was elected a See also:foreign member of the Royal Society, which in 1890 awarded him the See also:Copley medal. He also received the first See also:Bruce medal of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, awarded by the See also:directors of the See also:Berlin, Greenwich, Harvard, Lick, Paris and See also:Yerkes observatories. Except See also:Benjamin See also:Franklin he was the only American to become an Associate of the French See also:Institute. He died at Washington on the lrth of See also:July 1909, and was given a military funeral, having been made a See also:rear-See also:admiral by See also:Act of See also:Congress in 1906.
An autobiography, Reminiscences of an Astronomer, appeared in 1903; and a bibliography of his writings is given by Mr See also:Archibald in the Trans. See also:Roy. See also:Soc. See also:Canada, XI. iii. 99. See also the obituary See also:notice by H. H. See also:Turner in the Mon. Not. R.A.S. (Feb. 1910), p. 305.
End of Article: NEWCOMB, SIMON (1835-1909)
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