THE CLOSING OF A FAMOUS ASTRONOMICAL PROBLEM
THE CLOSING OF A FAMOUS ASTRONOMICAL PROBLEM
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著名天文问题的结束
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通讯作者：
W. W. Campbell
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作者：
W. W. Campbell
也许没有什么比1846年发现海王星更能说明科学方法的力量了。在此之前，天王星是我们太阳系中已知的最外层的成员，它拒绝遵循数学天文学家为其计算的轨道。随着时间的推移，它的预测位置和观测位置之间的差异不断增大，直到19世纪40年代初，不一致达到整整75弧秒。这是一个很小的角度--不超过我们月球角直径的二十五分之一--但对于精细的天文学来说，一个非常大的角度，因为两秒的偏差很容易被探测到。这种观点逐渐形成，认为天王星是受到一颗未被发现的行星的吸引而偏离其自然轨道的，这颗行星距离太阳的距离比它本身还远。1843年的亚当斯和1845年的勒维里尔，在彼此都不知道对方计划的情况下，独立地解决了当时极其困难的问题，即确定一个未被发现的天体的大致轨道、质量和位置，因为它的吸引力应该会产生观察到的扰动。1845年10月，亚当斯的研究结果被传达给皇家天文学家后，在寻找这颗行星的过程中出现了令人遗憾的和可以避免的延误。勒维里尔的结果于1846年9月被传达给柏林天文台，并要求进行一次搜索
There is perhaps no more striking illustration of the power of scientific method than that relating to the discovery of Neptune in 1846. The planet Uranus, until then the outermost known member of our solar system, refused to follow the path computed for it by mathematical astronomers. With thé progress of time the discrepancies between its predicted and observed positions grew constantly larger until, in the early eighteen-forties, the discordance amounted to fully seventy-five seconds of arc. This is a small angle—not more than one twenty-fifth the angular diameter of our moon—yet a very large angle to refined astronomy, for a discrepancy of two seconds would have been detected with ease. The opinion gradually developed that Uranus was drawn from its natural course by the attractions of an undiscovered planet still farther from the Sun than itself. Adams in 1843 and Le Verrier in 1845, independently, and each without knowledge of the other’s plans, attacked the then extremely difficult problem of determining the approximate orbit, mass, and position of an undiscovered body whose attractions should produce the perturbations observed. Regrettable and avoidable delays occurred in searching for the planet after Adams’s results were communicated to the astronomer royal, in October, 1845. Le Verrier’s results were communicated to the Berlin Observatory in September, 1846, with the request that a search