December 2004 - Materials Science Institute - University of Oregon

The long-missing Neptune file turned up in 1998. Stolen 30
years ago from the Royal Greenwich Observatory library
by astronomer Olin Eggen, for reasons that remain unclear,
it reemerged among Eggen’s effects after his death. The
documents give new insights into how Victorian astronomers
constructed the offi cial story of Neptune’s discovery.
The fi le includes this note, long referred to as the primary
evidence that John Couch Adams was the fi rst to predict the
existence and position of Neptune. Adams left this scrap of paper
in the mailbox of Astronomer Royal George Biddell Airy in October
1845. The note is underwhelming: it gives the results of a
calculation but provides no details.
The Planetgate Files
leaning against an ancient Celtic cross near the family home,
but poor eyesight prevented him from considering a career as
an observational astronomer. A fortuitous circumstance—the
discovery of a nodule of manganese, used in steelmaking, on the
family’s land—lofted him from poverty to Cambridge.
As soon as Adams arrived there in 1839, his savantlike abilities
stood out. “I was in despair,” fellow student A. S. Campbell
recalled, “for I had gone up to Cambridge with high hopes
From a Cornwall archive comes this newly discovered letter, which
Adams began to write to Airy but never completed. It sheds light
on a puzzle: why Adams never responded to Airy’s request for
more information. If he had, the British might have discovered
Neptune on their own well before the successful Franco-German
efforts. The letter clarifi es that Adams did consider Airy’s query
an important one, contradicting his later statements. Evidently,
other priorities distracted him from following through.
and now the fi rst man I meet is something infi nitely beyond
me.” Adams went on to take all the prizes in mathematics the
university offered. Yet otherwise he seemed forgettable, an almost
disembodied and unphysical being. Another student remembered
him as “a rather small man, who walked quickly,
and wore a faded coat of dark green.” His landlady said she
“sometimes found him lying on the sofa, with neither books
nor papers near him; but not infrequently ... when she wanted
96 SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN DECEMBER 2004
COPYRIGHT 2004 SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, INC.
SYNDICS OF CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY (top and bottom left); CORNWALL RECORD OFFICE (bottom right)