Harold Jacoby

“ We know, of course, that men would profit greatly from a study of that science, even if it could not be turned to any immediate bread-and-butter use; for astronomy is essentially the science of big things, and it makes men bigger to fix their minds on problems that deal with vast distances and seemingly endless periods of time. No one can look upon the quietly shining stars without being impressed by the thought of how they burned—then as now—before he himself was born, and so shall continue after he has passed away—aye, even after his latest descendants shall have vanished from the earth. ”

“ The Pleiad stars are among those for which no measurement of distance has yet been made, so that we do not know whether they are all equally far away from us. We see them projected on the dark background of the celestial vault; but we cannot tell from actual measurement whether they are all situated near the same point in space. It may be that some are immeasurably closer to us than are the great mass of their companions; possibly we look through the cluster at others far behind it, clinging, as it were, to the very fringe of the visible universe. ”

“ The true student of astronomy is animated by no mere vulgar curiosity to pry into things hidden. If he seeks the concealed springs that [11] move the complex visible mechanism of the heavens, he does so because his imagination is roused by the grandeur of what he sees; and deep down within him stirs the true love of the artist for his art. For it is indeed a fine art, that science of astronomy.
It can have been no mere chance that has massed the Pleiades from among their fellow stars. Men of ordinary eyesight see but a half-dozen distinct objects in the cluster ”

“ This motion of the heavenly bodies is known to be an apparent one merely, and caused by the turning of our own earth upon its axis. A man standing upon the earth's surface can look up and see above him one-half the great celestial vault, gemmed with twinkling stars, and bearing, perhaps, within its ample curve one or two serenely shining planets and the lustrous moon. But at any given moment the observer can see nothing of the other half of the heavenly sphere. ”

“ For there exists a strong curiosity to ascertain just how the greater world is built and governed; and it must be admitted that astronomers have been able to satisfy that curiosity with no small measure of success. But it is seldom that we hear of the means by which the latest and most refined astronomical observations are effected. Popular imagination pictures the astronomer, as he doubtless once was, an aged gentleman, usually having a long white beard, and spending entire nights staring at the sky through a telescope. ”

“ Space and time are two conceptions that transcend the powers of definition possessed by any man. But we can at least form a notion of how vast is the extent of time, if we remember that the period covered by man's written records is registered but as a single moment upon the great revolving dial of heaven's dome. One hundred and fifty years have elapsed since James Bradley built the foundations of modern sidereal astronomy upon his masterly series of observations at the Royal Observatory of Greenwich, in England. ”

“ And why does the moon ride thus through the stars of night? Modern science has succeeded in disentangling the intricacies of her motion, until to-day only one or two of the very minutest details of that motion remain unexplained. But it has been a hard problem. Someone has well said that lunar theory should be likened to a lofty cliff upon whose side the intellectual giants among men can mark off their mental stature, but whose height no one of them may ever hope to scale. ”

“ The visionary theorist's notion of a great central sun, controlling our own sun's way in space, must be dismissed as far too daring. But for such a central sun we may substitute a central centre of gravity belonging to a great system of which our sun is but an insignificant member. Then we reach a conception that has lost nothing in the [224] grandeur of its simplicity, and is yet in accord with the probabilities of sober mechanical science. We cease to be a lonely world, and stretch out the bonds of a common relationship to yonder stars within the firmament. ”

“ It blazed up quite suddenly near the apparent centre of the nebula, and continued in view for six months, fading finally beyond the reach of our most powerful telescopes. There can be little doubt that the star was actually in the nebula, and not merely seen through it, though in reality situated in the extreme outlying part of space at a distance immeasurably greater than that separating us from the nebula itself. Such an accidental superposition of nebula and star might even be due to sudden incandescence of a new star between us and the nebula. ”

“ It is even probable that space contains many darkened orbs, stars that may have risen in constellations to adorn the skies of prehistoric time—now cold, unseen, unknown. So far from dealing with an unvarying universe, it is safe to say that sidereal astronomy can advance only by the discovery of change. Observational science watches with untiring industry, and night hides few celestial events from the ardent scrutiny of astronomers. ”

“ Nowadays, when almost everyone has a watch in his pocket, and can have a clock, too, on the mantel-piece of every room in the house, the sun-dial has ceased to be needed in ordinary life. But it is still just as interesting as ever to anyone who would like to have the means of getting time direct from the sun, the great hour-hand or timekeeper of the sky. Any person who is handy with tools can make a sun-dial quite easily, by following the directions given below.
In the first place, you must know that the sun-dial gives the time by means of the sun's shadow. ”

“ There are no permanent marks on the sea, as there are on the land, by which the navigator can guide his course. Nevertheless, seamen know their path over the trackless ocean with a certainty as unerring as would be possible on shore; and it is all done by the help of astronomy. The navigator's observations of the sun are astronomical observations; the tables he uses in calculating his observations—the tables that tell him just where he is and in what direction he must go—are astronomical tables. Indeed, it is not too much to say that without astronomy there could be no safe ocean navigation. ”

“ The whole range of chemical science contains no experiment of greater inherent interest than the development of a photographic plate. Let but the smallest ray of light fall upon its strangely sensitive surface, and some subtle invisible change takes place. ”

“ Observers have found no other member of the solar system comparable in size with such bodies as Uranus and Neptune. More than one eager mathematician has tried to repeat Leverrier's achievement, but the supposed planet was not found. It has been said that figures never lie; yet such is the case only when the computations are correctly made. People are prone to give to the work of careless or incompetent mathematicians the same degree of credence that is really due only to masters of the craft. It requires the test of time to affix to any man's work the stamp of true genius. ”

“ The bright light of the sun made observations of the new body impossible; and it was feared that, owing to lack of knowledge of the planet's orbit, astronomers would be unable to trace it. So there seemed, indeed, to be danger of an almost irreparable loss to science. But in scientific, as in other human emergencies, someone always appears at the proper moment. A very young mathematician at Göttingen, named Gauss, attacked the problem, and was able to devise a method of predicting the future course of the planet on the sky, using only the few observations made by Piazzi himself. ”

“ It can be proved mathematically that our solar system will pull upon distant stars just as though the sun and all the planets were concentrated into one vast sphere having its centre in the centre of gravity of the whole. It is this property of the centre of gravity which makes it pre-eminently important in cosmic researches. For, while we know that centre to be at rest relatively to all the planets in the system, it may, nevertheless, in its quality as a sort of concentrated essence of them all, be moving swiftly through space under the pull of distant stars. ”

“ It is indeed the lack of observations extending through sufficient centuries that stays our hand from grasping the coveted result. The Pleiades are so far from us that we cannot be sure of changes among them. Magnitudes are always relative. It matters not how large the actual movements may be; if they are extremely small [15] in comparison with our distance, they must shrink to nothingness in our eyes. Trembling on the verge of invisibility, elusive, they are in that borderland where science as yet but feels her way, though certain that the way is there. ”

“ The discovery of a new and important planet usually receives more immediate popular attention and applause than any other astronomical event. Philosophers are fond of referring to our solar system as a mere atom among the countless universes that seem to be suspended within the profound depths of space. They are wont to point out that this solar system, small and insignificant as a whole in comparison with many of the stellar worlds, is, nevertheless, made up of a large number of constituent planets ”

“ To discover, therefore, whether our clock is right on any given night, it is merely necessary to watch a star with the telescope, and note the exact instant by the clock when it reaches the little cross in the field of view. Knowing from the astronomical tables the time when the star ought to have been on the meridian, and having observed the clock time when it is actually there, the difference is, of course, the error of the clock. ”

“ Old theories are tested and newer ones often perfected by the detection of some slight and previously [38] unsuspected alteration upon the face of the sky. The interpretation of such changes is the most difficult task of science; it has taxed the acutest intellects among men throughout all time.
If, then, changes can be seen among the stars, what are we to think of the most important change of all, the blazing into life of a new stellar system? Fifteen times since men began to write their records of the skies has the birth of a star been seen. ”

“ He has behind him the powerful support of a deep, delightful mystery. He it is who "takes the sun" at noon, and finds out the ship's path at sea. And in truth, regarded merely as a scientific experiment, the guiding of a vessel across the unmarked trackless ocean has few equals within the whole range of human knowledge. ”

“ Whilst gazing in a perspective of about half a mile, we were thrilled with astonishment to perceive four successive flocks of large-winged creatures, wholly unlike any kind of birds, descend with a slow, even motion from the cliffs on the western side, and alight upon the plain.... Certainly they were like human beings, and their attitude in walking was both erect and dignified. ”

“ Galileo's further observations of Saturn bothered him more and more. The planet's behavior became much worse as time went on. "Has Saturn devoured his children, according to the old legend?" he inquired soon afterward; for the changed positions of earth and planet in the course of their motions around the sun in their respective orbits had become such that the ring was seen quite edgewise, and was, therefore, perfectly invisible to Galileo's "optic tube." The puzzle remained unsolved by Galileo; it was left for another great man to find the true answer. ”

“ The first step in a study of polar motion is to devise a method of finding just where the pole is on any given date. If the astronomer can ascertain by observational processes just where the pole is among the stars at any moment, and can repeat his observations year after year and generation after generation, he will possess in time a complete chart of a small portion at least of the celestial pole's vast orbit. ”

“ The governing body is no despot; 'tis an abject slave of law and order, as much as the tiniest of attendant planets. The action of gravitation is mutual, and no cosmic body can attract another without being itself in turn subject to that other's gravitational action.
If there were in our solar system but two bodies, sun and planet, we should find each one pursuing a path in space under the influence of the other's attraction. These two paths or orbits would be oval, and if the sun and planet were equally massive, the orbits would be exactly alike, both in shape and size. ”

“ Rutherfurd did not stop with mere photographs. He realized very clearly the obvious truth that by making a picture of the sky we simply change the scene of our operations. Upon the photograph we can measure that which we might have studied directly in the heavens; but so long as they remain unmeasured, celestial [93] pictures have a potential value only. Locked within them may lie hidden some secret of our universe. But it will not come forth unsought. Patient effort must precede discovery, in photography, as elsewhere in science. There is no royal road. ”

“ On the sky the poles are marked by the prolongation of the earth's axis, just as on the earth the poles are marked by the axis itself. And this explains at once why the stars seem nightly to revolve about the pole. If the observer is being turned round the earth's axis, of course it will appear to him as if the stars were rotating around the same axis in the opposite direction, just as houses and fields seem to fly [186] past a person sitting in a railway train, unless he stops to remember that it is really himself who is in motion, and not the trees and houses. ”

“ The most obvious theory is, of course, suggested by what we know to be true within our own solar system. We owe to Newton the beautiful conception of gravitation, that unique law by means of which astronomers have been enabled to reduce to perfect order the seeming tangle of planetary evolutions. ”