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Herschel’s Scientific Apprenticeship and the Discovery of Uranus

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 April 2016

J.A. Bennett
J.A. Bennett*
Affiliation:
Whipple Science Museum, Cambridge CB2 3RH

Extract

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In 1784 Jean-Dominique Cassini, who as Director of the Paris Observatory was one of the foremost professional astronomers of his day, wrote

‘A discovery so unexpected could only have singular circumstances, for it was not due to an astronomer and the marvellous telescope….was not the work of an optician; it was Mr Herschel, an English musician, to whom we owe the knowledge of this seventh principal planet (Schaffer, 1981, 21).

Type
History of the Discovery of Uranus
Information
International Astronomical Union Colloquium , Volume 60: Uranus and the Outer Planets , 1982 , pp. 35 - 53
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1982

References

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Lubbock, C.A., ed., The Herschel chronicle, (Cambridge, 1933).Google Scholar
Schaffer, S., ‘“The great laboratories of the universe”: William Herschel on matter theory and planetary life’, Journal for the history of astronomy, xi (1980), 81–111.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schaffer, S., ‘Uranus and the establishment of Herschel’s astronomy’, Journal for the history of astronomy, xii (1981), 11–26.Google Scholar
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