HERSCHEL—AND 100 YEARS OF ASTRONOMY.

Dunstan Times, Issue 3139, 16 October 1922, Page 2

HERSCHEL—AND 100 YEARS OF ASTRONOMY.

(liv W. G. W. Mitchell, 13.5 c., F.E.A.S., F.R.Met.S.) On Auiiust 2b, 1522, Frederick Wil--1 liaiii Herschcl died at Slough at the ripe age of eighty-three years nine months. His long life, crowded almost ■ to the end with scientific activity, is an outstanding example of the ability to use odd fragments of time and turn them to the pursuit of knowledge. He was horn at Hanover, on Novem- ; her lb, 17-3 S. His father was a hautboy player in the Hanoverian Guards, ■ and the son, who showed a remarkable; • aptitude for music, as well as a. decided taste for knowledge of various ’ sorts, entered his father’s profession as i a hoy of fourteen. He came to Eng- ' land at the age of eighteen with less than half a guinea in bis pocket, but the young musician fought his way to success. His early wanderings took ; him to Edinburgh, and he obtained £ various musical posts at Newcastle and 1 Pontefract. * Herschcl’s desire to perfect himself ' in tin l theory of music naturally led - him to study mathematics. Thence, he turned his attention to optics and the - 1 telescope, so that in 17713 we find him sending to London for some objectglasses which he afterwards fitted ' carefully into pasteboard tubes. His 1 first instrument was four feet long and '■ magnified forty times. His drawing-room became an observatory. and in his bedroom he erect--1 ed a turning machine for grinding 1 mirrors. ■> All this while music was graudally 1 being displaced in his mind by the - growing desire—almost a passion —to 1 devote himself entirely to astronomy. At this time he used to take music 1 pupils and rehearsals by day and 1 review the heavens by night. Thus it. was that sun. moon, stars, and jrlan--1 els were all passed in review, and their r peculiarities noted down and described. : Four times did Herschel pass the heas vens under review. The first of these 1 he began in 177b. i It was while he was engaged on the second of these “reviews” that he discovered Franns. No new planet had been discovered in historic times. Herschel’s achievement was therei fore absolutely unique. His system- [ aide “sweeping of the heavens” had brought its reward, for Ins discovery [ tumbled him to abandon music as a profession. Henceforward he was King’s Astronomer —a not enviable . post in those days, with a salary of 1-21)0 a year attached to il , The naming of the “new planet” wa-' attended with difficulties. Herschel was of opinion that it should lie named after bis patron, George HI. Tins I view, however, did not receive approval in the scientific world. [ Herschel thus laid the foundations of modern astronomy. With more powerful means at their disposal modern investigator:- agree in so far that they believe the universe to he lens-shaped, and to extend further in the direction of the .Milky Way. The fascinating “motor wheel” theory recently developed by Professor Eddington. ol Cambridge, is perhaps a hundred years’ advance on Herschel s “grindstone j theory.” for here the .Milky Way is shown as the tyre ol the wheel a kind ’ of belt or girdle surrounding the universe.