Le Verrier – – Magnificent And Detestable Astronomer – James Legueux

We kept our peace, thinking the fi eld of battle poorly chosen for a debate in which the science is only the pretext. But, since M. Le Verrier, who belongs to the Bureau himself, has seen fi t for a second time to bring his attacks before the Academy, instead of addressing his com- plaints directly to the Bureau, permit me to respond this time, and in detail, to this Assembly. It is necessary that the scienti fi c world should know what M. Le Verrier knows perfectly well: that the Bureau of longitudes up to now has done all that lies in its power for the Connaissance des Temps , given the meager resources at its disposal.

… The Minister of Public Instruction, understanding well the necessity of coming to the aid of the Bureau to ensure its ful fi llment of an important public service, has granted to it in 1859 a sum of 8,000 francs. As a result it has been possible to provide in the Connaissance des Temps the lunar positions from hour to hour instead of at 12 hours intervals.

41 The same funding has been provided to the Bureau this year…. The Bureau has therefore entered upon a course of improvements. M. Le Verrier knows these circumstances, but wanting to give rise to a scandal, has chosen precisely this moment to attack the Bureau of longitudes, of which, I repeat, he himself is a member.

I had the good fortune in my youth to work in the Bureau side by side with the most outstanding savants of our time: Lagrange, Laplace, Legendre, Delambre…. These illustri- ous men joined their efforts in the single-minded pursuit of advancing science. But I have never before seen anything like what I am seeing today. Liouville, and then Delaunay, soon threw themselves into the controversy. Liouville and Delaunay on one side, and Le Verrier on the other, engaged in a fl urry of mutual recriminations, each faulting the other in a series of articles.

The Academy attempted to calm the storm, but without success.

F. BERTOLA, University of Padua, Italy C. J. CESARSKY, Commission for Atomic Energy, Saclay, France P. EHRENFREUND, Leiden University, The Netherlands O. ENGVOLD, University of Oslo, Norway A. HECK, Strasbourg Astronomical Observatory, France E. P. J. VAN DEN HEUVEL, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands V. M. KASPI, McGill University, Montreal, Canada J. M. E. KUIJPERS, University of Nijmegen, The Netherlands H. VAN DER LAAN, University of Utrecht, The Netherlands P. G. MURDIN, Institute of Astronomy, Cambridge, UK B. V. SOMOV, Astronomical Institute, Moscow State University, Russia R.

A. SUNYAEV, Space Research Institute, Moscow, Russia For further volumes: http://www.springer.com/series/5664 James Lequeux Le Verrier—Magni fi cent and Detestable Astronomer Edited and with an introduction by William Sheehan Translated By Bernard Sheehan James Lequeux Paris Observatory Paris, France Permission to reprint all images in this book generously provided by the Paris Observatory ISSN 0067-0057 ISBN 978-1-4614-5564-6 ISBN 978-1-4614-5565-3 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-4614-5565-3 Springer New York Heidelberg Dordrecht London Library of Congress Control Number: 2012954612 © Springer Science+Business Media New York 2013 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, speci fi cally the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on micro fi lms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed.

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