Talk:Discovery of Neptune

Additional sources/references
Whatever the position on NPOV (which I think is not as extreme as has been suggested), may I recommend two additional reference sources.

1: There is an excellent, also non-sensational, summary history (in French) written in 1946 by Prof A Danjon, himself a notable astronomer and inventor who was then director of the Paris Observatory ("Le centenaire de la découverte de Neptune", Danjon, A., in 'Ciel et Terre' (1946), Vol. 62, p. 369). The full paper is downloadable (pdf or gif pages) at  http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1946C%26T....62..369D

It seems to me that Danjon's account succeeds in combining accessibility with mathematical truth and proportionality. He gives interesting data (and some quotes from LeVerrier which I haven't seen elsewhere), and includes a summary of the parallel work of Adams.

Danjon's information gives a useful technical perspective to some points in the existing article page.

For example, it's useful to cross-refer to Danjon in regard to the claim currently on the page that both calculators had "greatly overestimated the planet's actual distance from the sun. Further, they both succeeded in getting the longitude almost right only because of a 'fluke of orbital timing'."

Danjon attributes this particular criticism to the US astronomer Peirce and shows that it was not very well taken. Danjon gives a diagram showing that while hypothetical orbits calculated by both LeVerrier and Adams for the new planet were very different on the whole from that of the real Neptune (and actually similar to each other), they were both much closer to the real Neptune, over the crucial segment of orbit covering the interval of years for which the observations and calculations were made, than for the rest of the calculated orbits. So the fact that both the calculators used a much larger orbital major axis than the reality, this was not so important, and not the most relevant parameter, because, so the figure illustrates, there were temporarily compensating errors made by both Leverrier and Adams in the orbital eccentricity and direction of perihelion. (This is quite a common type of occurrence with early attempts to calculate orbits for other bodies for which data are available only over a short arc.)

2: Adams' paper of November 1846 read to the Royal Astronomical Society is also available in full on the internet. It gives many mathematical details, but it is especially notable here for Adams' specific acknowledgement of LeVerrier's credit for the discovery (para 5 of the paper) :- "I mention these dates merely to show that my results were arrived at independently, and previously to the publication of those of M.Le Verrier, and not with the intention of interfering with his just claims to the honours of the discovery ; for there is no doubt that his researches were first published to the world, and led to the actual discovery of the planet by Dr. Galle, so that the facts stated above cannot detract, in the slightest degree, from the credit due to M. Le Verrier." Download is available at -- http://www.archive.org/details/appendicestovari00grearich (NB that this is a 50Mb pdf download, because it's a photoscan of a large 1851 book, a collection of astronomical reprints published by the Nautical Almanac Office, of which the Adams paper is only one.)

In this connection it is worth mentioning that Danjon's account points out that LeVerrier and Adams both stood back from the quarrelsome aspects of the controversy, they met each other the following year and developed good relations.

Terry0051 (talk) 11:19, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

English POV bias
This article reads like a sporting event, with a pro-English (home team) bias. France and Germany (vistors) are not given the credit due. This should not be a teleological story that begins with Adams. As noted, Le Verrier's work was done independently, and Galle was the first to positively match an observation with data...in part because of a brilliant idea (using the maps) and diligence (he did it that very night).

Thus, shouldn't the article have more on LeVerrier and Adams than it does?Ryoung122 05:16, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

I see, so you want to take even more away from LeVerrier-Galle now. Actually, the entire article is hyperbole. Perhaps a complete re-write is needed. This should be an encyclopedia article, not a movie script.Ryoung122 06:03, 23 September 2007 (UTC)


 * You seem to be referring to my edit. It was my first edit of the article, and should not be interpreted as biased wrt the controversy. This use of the word "very" is a pet peeve of mine because the word is unhelpful and, as you might agree, not encyclopediac in tone. I remove it wherever I see it.


 * There is no need to tell the reader that the match is remarkable - the author of the sentence remarked on it so it must be remarkable. I did leave the word "only" in place because it implies that the difference is small.


 * The link to planet is unnecessary because the link is in the introductory paragraph.


 * The explanation that planets move and stars don't is incomplete and implied in the Galilean reference. If it should be included explicitly, it should be mentioned earlier in the story.


 * For the record, I agree with your initial comment in this talk page.


 * Have a look at Help:Reverting to see WP guidelines on reverting edits. Ronstew 06:31, 23 September 2007 (UTC)


 * The extensive reliance on the 1911 edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica also seems very NPOV. 193.132.242.1 (talk) 11:15, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Anti-Adams POV bias (May 2008)
With recent edits (May 2008), substantial parts of the article now appear to have a clear anti-Adams POV bias. So far as Adams' own actions are concerned, he did original research, and then published it, simultaneously making full acknowledgement of credit and priority to the other researchers (LeVerrier, Galle) whose results had been published first (see main article reference to Adams' November 1846 paper, with link to online image-text). It is hard to see how those actions of Adams were blameworthy in any way. The anti-Adams invective seems quite inappropriate. The sarcastic question and discussion headed 'what date was Adams going to discover Neptune on?' both shows anti-Adams POV bias, and is answered (along with some of the other anti-Adams material) by the content of the website of the Observatoire de Paris.

See for example the content of a biography page for LeVerrier at the Paris Observatory ( http://www.obspm.fr/histoire/acteurs/leverrier.fr.shtml ). The authors/editors of the biography page (S. Débarbat, S. Grillot, J. Lévy), all professional staff at the Paris observatory, write, in a footnote:- "Un jeune mathématicien britannique, J.C. Adams (1819-1892) avait fait un calcul analogue, moins précis mais qui aurait suffi à faire découvrir la planète si les astronomes de Cambridge avaient été plus diligents dans l'analyse de leurs observations." ("A young British mathematician, J C Adams (1819-1892) had made an analogous calculation, it was less precise, but it would have been sufficient for the discovery of the planet if the Cambridge astronomers had been more diligent in the analysis of their observations.")

In other words, this French-language article acknowledges that the theory and observations were both sufficiently present in Cambridge to have made the discovery, but the astronomers at Cambridge were slow in analysing their observations. (Part of the story of that slowness is given in the 1946 French-language article by A Danjon, referenced, with a link to the online text, on the main page.)

The actions of Airy and Challis are another matter, but an anti-Adams POV bias seems to be unjustified and unhistorical. (terry0051, not signed-in.)

What date was Adams GOING to discover Neptune on?
Credit isn't simply coming up with an idea; you have to get it first to 'market.' Since the Galle-Le Verrier team was first (after all...you DID put this on Sept 23 1846...what date was Adams GOING to discover the planet Neptune, had it not already been discovered?), I question the current wording as politically-correct muckery.Ryoung122 05:59, 23 September 2007 (UTC)
 * I may be biased, but to me the whole pother smacks of farce. Galle acted on Le Verrier's calculations, which had been PUBLISHED, while Adams alleged predictions were not. If their roles were inverted, Le Verrier would barely get a footnote, and a sneering one at that. L&#39;omo del batocio (talk) 16:42, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
 * "Airy wrote to Leverrier on the 14th of October congratulating him, ‘You are to recognized beyond doubt as the real predictor of the planet’s place,’ then added a week later on the 21st:‘no person in England will dispute the completeness of your investigations, the sagacity of your remarks on the points it was important to observe, and the fairness of your moral convictions as to the accuracy and certainty of the results. With these things we have nothing which we can put in competition. My acknowledgement of this will never be wanting; nor, I am confident, will that of any other Englishman who really knows the history of the matter.’". Yeah, sure. Then he changed his mind. I got the above from this English academic site, where the story is told with ample quotes from the original documents. L&#39;omo del batocio (talk) 17:13, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
 * A compliment worthy of the Bard himself. 50.64.119.38 (talk) 14:07, 23 October 2017 (UTC)

An apology and a defence
I am the person guilty of writing most of this article so I thought that I would try to defend by reputation. I originally got involved because I wanted to write the William Grylls Adams article, being interested in 19th century technical education. I found the John Couch Adams article with a POV template and comments that it seemed to give too much priority to Adams. I carefully worked through the article verifying all statements from the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. I then went carefully through the Sheehan, W. et al. (2004) Scientific American article and then the Kollerstrom website carefully interpolating those views and adding references. I would say that the ODNB is by far the most reliable source of those three. Of course, this was all from the viewpoint of the Adams article.

Of course, this upset the balance of the Adams article. It's not his most important claim to fame. I broke it out into a separate article "summary style" and added links to articles of the other main players. I have, despite your comments, worked very hard to make this NPOV and verifiable. I am painfully aware that there is more detail here about Adams than anyone else. That is because of the article's origins, my limited time to spend on mining Sheehan and Kollerstrom, and the fact that my sources are principally English. If the story reads like a film script then I would submit that that is because of the inherent excitement of the story rather than editorial colourisation. To defend again my bona fides, I started the Heinrich Louis d'Arrest article and, I think, all Wikipedia references to his pivotal role were contributed by me.

I'm sorry that my editing has not met your high standards and look forward to your improvement of the article.Cutler 21:51, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for admitting as much. It may not even be advertent bias, but the problem is the article starts from Adams and works backwards, instead of starting from the actual discovery of Neptune and working forward. So, there are macro-issues to deal with, not just details. Ryoung122 01:15, 17 October 2007 (UTC)


 * I have amended and edited the article to remove some of the NPOV bias in favor of Adams, though it still could use more work. I have also added a graph of my own making showing the positions of Neptune on the day of discovery according to the various hypotheses. (I got the data from Rawlins 1992, which is now listed in the bibliography.)

--Keithpickering (talk) 08:10, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Good work! - diagram is especially useful.Cutler (talk) 09:11, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Lassell
William Lassell, a brewer from Liverpool, seems to have suffered from a series of disasters, ranging from a lost letter to an injured ankle. They prevented his finding Neptune at that time, it is said. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 172.143.97.30 (talk) 15:09, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Personal search
The planet Neptune has a magnitude that ranges from 7.78 to 8.00 and should be visible in a small telescope. The question arises as to why Adams did not try a personal search for Neptune. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.194.4.21 (talk) 10:20, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

The question arises as well as to why Le Verrier did not try to search for Neptune himself. Adams asked Airy, and when the latter didn't immediately send telescopes a-whirring, Adams was content to return to his theoretical calculations. Le Verrier asked Arago and the Paris observatory mounted a search for a while but abandoned it in 1846. The difference though was that he kept bugging astronomers to look for it (he even asked Airy), ultimately having to go (figuratively) all the way to Germany to get someone to actually find it. 122.2.111.174 (talk) 09:50, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Several "old" astronomy books that I read about 40 years ago (and still remember!) all mentioned that at the time the weather in Europe and England was very cloudy. As it happened, both Adams and Le Verrier were in places that were cloudy at the time. No, I don't have an impeccable reference for that 58.167.64.35 (talk) 10:12, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

Diameters
Galle's telescope had a diameter of 9 inches, that of Challis, 11.25 inches, and that of Lassell, 24 inches. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.194.4.21 (talk) 10:01, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Four more
Bessel and Fleming took some part in the discovery of Neptune. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.145.11.103 (talk) 12:30, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Bessel died on 17/3/1846, just before the discovery of Neptune. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.194.4.21 (talk) 09:56, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Friedrich Wilhelm Flemming was born on 26/7/1812 and died on 28/12/1840. Lexell might be mentioned. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.154.1.168 (talk) 10:12, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

See Anders Johan Lexell. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.154.1.168 (talk) 10:15, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

See Alexis Bouvard. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.154.1.168 (talk) 10:32, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

See Friedrich Bessel. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.169.202.217 (talk) 14:40, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

See Johann Franz Encke. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.30.71.244 (talk) 14:41, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Seven
In the main article, "only seven planets" should be "only seven major planets". Five minor planets were known in 1846. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.44.111.24 (talk) 15:09, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Challis
In the main article, it is said that "Challis lacked an up-to-date star-map". Neptune should have shown a disc in his telescope. I think Challis actually said in his notes, "It seems to have a disc." In addition, Challis could see Neptune move, if he saw it more than once. It has an apparent diameter of 2.2 to 2.4 seconds of arc, when seen from the Earth. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.44.108.15 (talk) 12:37, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Challis admitted that he didn't analyze/compare his observations until after Galle found Neptune. When he did come back and look at them, he found that he actually "saw" Neptune move in his 30 July and 12 August observations. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.2.111.174 (talk) 09:54, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Not
About six other observations of Neptune are not mentioned in the article. They were made by Lalande and others, who mistook it for a star. See the MacTutor article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.41.51.240 (talk) 11:36, 3 April 2008 (UTC) The earlier observations are now mentioned in the article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.149.223.218 (talk) 14:12, 19 August 2008 (UTC) See http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/HistTopics/Neptune_and_Pluto.html —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.139.116.24 (talk) 11:30, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

"It was...a dramatic confirmation of Newtonian gravitational theory"
Is this statement factually accurate? We now know that Newton's gravitational theory is in fact wrong and has been superseded by Einstein's theory of relativity. Should this statement be altered to say "It was...an alleged dramatic confirmation of Newtonian gravitational theory" or "It was...acclaimed as a dramatic confirmation of Newtonian gravitational theory"? 67.184.14.87 (talk) 16:40, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
 * The word "alleged" is not justified. Relativistic effects were too small
 * to be visible in Neptune's orbit in 1846 and for a long time afterwards.
 * The word "acclaimed" would be justified. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.149.223.218 (talk) 15:02, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
 * The fact that 67.184.14.87 asked the above question at all shows that he is
 * not familiar with the theory of relativity. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.139.116.24 (talk) 13:59, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Possible motion
Galileo, writing in Latin, said about the two apparent stars, "sed videbat remotiores inter se". Thus he treated the motion of Neptune as possible, not certain. See the MacTutor article, mentioned in the paragraph entitled "Not", above. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.139.116.24 (talk) 15:43, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

Confusing wording
The 'Galileo's "near miss"' section begins with the words: "On January 28, 1613, using the same telescope". Same telescope as what? It goes on to say, "not only did Galileo record Neptune, but he was also the first person to detect its motion", but later seems to contradict this with the statement, "Neptune's motion was far too slight to be detected with Galileo's small telescope". I don't know enough about the subject, but perhaps somebody could sort out the confusion. Or am I missing something(s)? Davidelit (Talk) 04:24, 23 September 2009 (UTC)
 * I took a stab at rewriting this section. Feel free to improve on it. Aldebaran66 (talk) 06:43, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Predicted (the discovery of) the planet

 * ... George Airy announced that Adams had also predicted the discovery of the planet.

I'm not in love with the three bold words, recently added. I can see why the editor was unhappy about "prediction" of something that had been there for eons; on another hand, "predicted the discovery" suggests to me that Adams predicted when or how or by whom Neptune would be seen. Is there a better word than "predicted"? —Tamfang (talk) 04:36, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

NPOV tag October 2012 regarding the pro-Adams POV
There is currently almost no information on how Le Verrier discovered the planet, instead that section of the article focuses entirely on Adams. Because it was Le Verrier's data that was actually used to discover the planet I feel that his methodology and research should have priority in the article while of course not omitting any of the other independent discoverers. I do not feel knowledgeable enough on the subject to make the edit myself. Viciouspiggy (talk) 15:43, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

I agree. I went to this page because I wanted to know Le Verrier's story on the work he did to lead to the discovery of Neptune. There is nothing here. He should be given a greater weighting than Adams on this page? DMichael6 (talk) 07:32, 29 May 2021 (UTC)

Predicted by Lexell?
The current text includes the following remarkable claim


 * "In 1781, Anders Johan Lexell was the first to compute the orbit of Uranus and notice that it had irregularities. He suggested that there might be other planets in the Solar System that perturb the orbit of Uranus, with the Solar System ranging as far as 100 AU."

However, the cited article, online here and reprinted here, makes no such claim. Unless someone objects or produces a reliable source I will delete this within the next few days. AstroLynx (talk) 16:26, 26 September 2016 (UTC)


 * As nobody objected, I have deleted the unsourced claim. AstroLynx (talk) 08:40, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

No math at all?
this is disturbing and disappointing. even the File:Neptune discovery.png doesn't explain where the planet should have been according to newton's law. the link in the further reading section to Barbara J. Becker lecture do provide some hints but i'm not satisfied − Fleeting compliance (talk) 19:58, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

Wasn't there that...
So, I just read a book (Under Alien Skies: A Sightseer's Guide to the Universe, by Phil Plait; the only redlink on his page) that seems to say that Neptune's mass was underestimated and there was nothing pulling on Uranus besides Neptune. -Links to my Profily, chat discussion, and editing history! This message was sent by TenGolfPedia at 02:12, 11 June 2023 (UTC)