A Walk in the Woods

Every aspiring scientist learns thatthe path of discovery is paved withopposition—especially when an assumption,belief, or notion that everyonethinks of as true is proven false.In our hi-tech world, much of thisopposition remains comfortably in thepast. No religious leader has forced amodern-day Galileo to recant hisfindings, and no 20th-century scientistsuffered like the monk Giordano Bruno,who, in 1600, was burned at the stakefor suggesting that the universe couldcontain an infinite number of stars withplanets whirling around them.But there remains within the field ofscientific endeavor a risk almost asperilous, whose consequences can havedevastating results: the possibility that,after years of searching for—andthinking you have found—the truth,a colleague comes to you with resultsthat question your findings.It is almost ironic that just such aseries of events occurred almost 40 yearsago at Swarthmore in the Department ofAstronomy.Barnard’sW bbleW a s i t a p l a n e t ?s a i dP r o b a b l y ,l e g e n d a r yS w a r t h m o r ea s t r o n o m e rP e t e r V a n d e K a m p .L i k e l y n o t ,s a i d h i s c h o s e ns u c c e s s o r ,W u l f f H e i n t z .By Bill KentWhat happened at Swarthmorebetween Peter Van de Kampand Wulff Heintz is very significantwithin the astronomical worldbecause it underscored the unpredictableconsequences inherent in all serious research,”says Paul Halpern, a physics professorat the University of the Sciences inPhiladelphia, who wrote about the twoSwarthmore astronomers in his 1997 bookThe Quest for Alien Planets: Exploring WorldsOutside the Solar System. “Stories like thishappen often in science, but you don’t hearabout them much because, let’s face it, peoplelike to hear about the upside in makingimportant discoveries, not the downside.”Indeed, the scientific world respondedwith nothing but praise in 1963, when Vande Kamp, now deceased but then a professorof astronomy and director of theSproul Observatory, announced that hehad sufficient evidence to suggest that hehad found a planetary system beyond thesolar system.Though scientists and science fictionwriters had assumed that other such systemsexisted in the universe, the actual discoveryof one was like finding astronomy’sHoly Grail. The 1963 announcement madeVan de Kamp, already a beloved figure onthe Swarthmore campus, one of the mostfamous astronomers in the world.Sarah Lippincott Zimmerman ’42, professoremerita of astronomy and directoremerita of the Sproul Observatory, whowas Van de Kamp’s research associate andlater director of the Sproul Observatory,remembers him as “a charming man, interestedin a great many things outside ofastronomy.”A native of Holland, Van de Kamp cameto Swarthmore in 1937 and rapidly establishedhimself as a witty, charismatic personalityand virtuoso pianist. He conductedthe College orchestra in the 1950s andhosted “Charlie Chaplin Seminars” inClothier Hall, where he showed films fromhis collection of Chaplin silent comedieswhile performing the piano accompaniment.A fan of both classical and Americanpopular music, he composed tunes that henamed after the stars he observed. Musicalsatirist Peter Schickele ’57 composed “TheEasy Goin’ P.V.D.K. Ever-Lovin’ Rag” forVan de Kamp’s 70th birthday. During hisM A R C H 2 0 0 129