The Red Notebook

Today marks the completion of the planet Neptune‘s first orbit of the sun since it was discovered by astronomers on 23 September, 1846.

The discovery of Neptune is one of those neat stories often used to illustrate the predictive capabilities of science. Englishman John Couch Adams and Frenchman Urbain Jean-Joseph Le Verrier independently calculated the orbit of the inferred new planet, based on known irregularities in the orbit of Uranus. And, sure enough, when astronomers pointed their telescopes where Adams and Le Verrier said, there shone Neptune! Interestingly, though, these astronomers were probably not the first to observe Neptune: Galileo, Lalande and Herschel are each thought to have seen the it earlier, but none of them seems to have realised that they were looking at a new planet.

Another frequently told story of a scientific prediction proving correct comes courtesy of Charles Darwin. (You must have known I’d be getting to him eventually.) In his snappily titled book On the Various Contrivances by which British And Foreign Orchids are Fertilised by Insects, and on the Good Effects of Intercrossing, Darwin famously predicted the existence of a moth with an extremely long proboscis, which would be the pollinator of a strange Madagascan orchid with an extremely long nectary, writing:

I fear that the reader will be wearied, but I must say a few words on the Angræcum sesquipedale, of which the large six-rayed flowers, like stars formed of snow-white wax, have excited the admiration of travellers in Madagascar. A whip-like green nectary of astonishing length hangs down beneath the labellum. […]

I could not for some time understand how the pollinia of this Orchid were removed, or how it could be fertilised. I passed bristles and needles down the open entrance into the nectary and through the cleft in the rostellum with no result. It then occurred to me that, from the length of the nectary, the flower must be visited by large moths, with a proboscis thick at the base; and that to drain the last drop of nectar even the largest moth would have to force its proboscis as far down as possible.

Xanthopan morganii praedicta
(Image: cc kqedquest on Flickr)

Darwin’s prediction was seen as a bold one by at least one of his correspondents. In 1862, just 16 years after the discovery of Neptune, Edward Cresy Jr went so far as to compare Darwin’s prediction with that of Adams and Le Verrier, writing to Darwin:

I think your anticipation by analogy of a Madagascar moth with a probiscis ten inches long equals Adam’s & Leverrier— What a triumph it will be to find him—

Unlike Adams and Le Verrier, Darwin did not live to see his prediction confirmed. It was not until 1903 that a new sub-species of the African hawk moth was discovered in Madagascar. As Darwin had predicted, the moth feeds from the nectaries of Angraecum sesquipedale with its extremely long proboscis. The new sub-species was given the very appropriate scientific name Xanthopan morganii praedicta in recognition of yet another triumphant prediction for science.

Postscript [02-Dec-2011]: …although, apparently (see comments), Xanthopan morganii praedicta was named in honour of Alfred Russel Wallace’s similar prediction, not Darwin’s.

Thomas Harriot

(c. 1560–1621)

400 years ago today, on 26th July, 1609, the early English scientist Thomas Harriot pointed his new-fangled telescope at the moon and made a drawing.

Four months later, but much more famously, Galileo did the same.

In the same way that Darwin is rightly remembered as the father of evolution by means of Natural Selection, even though other people had touched on similar ideas before him, Galileo is rightly remembered as the father of telescopic astronomy. Harriot did not publish his findings, whereas Galileo followed through on his research, proving to the world once and for all—and at considerable personal risk—that there are more things in heaven and earth than were dreamt of in Aristole’s geocentric cosmology.

The Strozzi Palace in Florence, Italy, is currently housing a wonderful exhibition, entitled Galileo: Images of the Universe from Antiquity to the Telescope. I was lucky enough to be in Florence earlier this year, and visited the exhibition (which runs until 30th August, 2009). It is quite simply one of the best scientific exhibitions I have ever seen, packed full of priceless scientific artefacts, including Galileo’s original watercolour sketches of the moon in different phases, and the notebook in which he recorded his first observation of the Jovian satellites.

If you are passing anywhere near Italy before the end of August, I urge you to make time to visit the exhibition.

The Beagle Project‘s new colleagues over at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration have spent many billions of dollars over the years trying to discover signs of life on Mars. Their latest magnificent endeavour is the Phoenix Mars Lander, which earlier this year identified water in a sample of soil it had collected from the planet’s surface. As I type, the plucky, little lander continues to carry out excellent scientific work before the harsh Martian winter finally takes grip.

But Nasa could have saved themselves an awful lot of time, money and effort trying to establish the presence of water—and, indeed, life—on Mars, had they simply consulted the only scientific publication of record. Popular Scientific Recreations, Profusely Illustrated (pp. 524–526) has this to say on the subject of Mars:

It is quite ascertained that Mars is very like our earth in miniature. We annex a diagram of the planet, and when it is examined With a good telescope the seas and continents can be quite distinctly perceived. At the poles there appears to be a white or snowy region at varying periods, which would lead us to the conclusion that the atmospheric changes and the seasons are similar to our own; and as the inclination of the planet is nearly the same as the earth, this supposition may be accepted as a fact.

Thus we see that Mars is the most like earth of all the planets, and its inhabitants—if, indeed, it is now inhabited—must have a beautiful view of us when the weather is fine, for we are so much larger…

There have been numerous theories concerning Mars being inhabited, and of course these suggestions made respecting life on one planet may, with varying circumstances, be applied to another. Each planet may have had, or may yet have, to pass througn what has been termed a “life-bearing stage”. We on earth are at present in the enjoyment of that stage. So far as we can tell, therefore, Mars may be inhabited now, as he bears much the same appearance as our planet. Certain changes are going on in Mars, and all planets, just as they go on here in our earth, and as they did long, long ages before the earth was populated, and which will continue to go on after life on the earth has ceased to exist…

That there are clouds and aqueous atmosphere surrounding Mars we learn from spectroscopic observation and analysis, and in fine we may look upon Mars as similar to our earth. Respecting the question of its habitation we take the liberty to quote Mr. Richard Proctor:—

“I fear my own conclusion about Mars is that his present condition is very desolate. I look on the ruddiness of tint to which I have referred as one of the signs that the planet of war has long since passed its prime. There are lands and seas in Mars, the vapour of water is present in his air, clouds form, rains and snows fall upon his surface, and doubtless brooks and rivers irrigate his soil, and carry down the moisture collected on his wide continents to the seas whence the clouds had originally been formed. But I do not think there is much vegetation on Mars, or that many living creatures of the higher types of Martian life as it once existed still remain.

All that is known about the planet tends to show that the time when it attained that stage of planetary existence through which our earth is now passing must be set millions of years, perhaps hundreds of millions of years ago. He has not yet, indeed reached that airless and waterless condition, that extremity of internal cold, or in fact that utter unfitness to suport any kind of life, which would seem to prevail in the moon. The planet of war in some respects resembles a desolate battle-field, and I fancy that there is not a single region of the earth now inhabited by man which is not infinitely more comfortable as an abode of life than the most favoured regions of Mars at the present time would be for creatures like ourselves.”

Wow!

BBC: Stargazers enjoy meteor spectacle

Thousands of people in the northern hemisphere have witnessed a spectacular light show of shooting stars, known as the Perseid meteor shower.

Meteor showers were once seen as heavenly portents, interpreted in one way or another by people who didn’t know what the hell they were talking about. Thanks to science, we now know that the annual Perseid shower occurs when Earth passes through the tail of the Swift-Tuttle comet, causing tiny particles of dust to burn up in our planet’s atmosphere.

Keats moaned that Newton had destroyed the poetry of the rainbow by describing how it worked. Keats could not have been more wrong. Isn’t the real explanation of the Perseid shower so much more poetic than any mumbo-jumbo about starry messages from non-existant deities? Knowing its true cause only added to my sense of wonder as I stood barefoot on my lawn last night, gawping at the light show emanating from just to the left of Cassiopeia.

BBC: Joan of Arc remains ‘are fakes’

Bones thought to be the holy remains of 15th Century French heroine Joan of Arc were in fact made from an Egyptian mummy and a cat, research has revealed.

Another victory for science over religious dogma, we might think, but we shouldn’t smirk: remember Piltdown Man? OK, I know the debunking of Piltdown Man was also a victory for science, which is supposed to continually challenge its own theories and data, but egg was definitely left on certain faces.

I don’t get it with bodily relics, I really don’t. Fascinated though I am by Charles Darwin, if someone were to offer me a peek at his skull buried beneath the flagstones of Westminster Abbey (assuming it hasn’t crumbled to dust by now), I would politely decline. Let the poor man rest in peace! And as for Einstein’s brain, sliced, diced and pickled in assorted jars, no thank you very much. It’s damn morbid.

While there’s an outside possibility that an analysis of Darwin’s remains might give us some clue as to the mysterious illness that plagued his life following the Beagle voyage, and Einstein’s brain has supposedly been used for scientific research into the nature of genius, I simply don’t get the (usually, but not exclusively, religious) fascination with preserving and worshipping bodily fragments from the great and the good.

Galileo’s finger
IMSS, Florence

Last month, I visited Florence, Italy, where I encountered a genuine, scientific ‘holy’ relic. In a glass case in the frankly wonderful Museum of the History of Science, I gazed upon the middle finger of the right hand of Galileo Galilei. The finger the great scientist raised metaphorically at his former ally Pope Urban VIII while rather patronisingly pointing out the weaknesses of the church’s geocentric view of the universe.

Galileo’s memorial,
Santa Croce.
(cc) Richard Carter

There is, of course, quite a story behind how Galileo’s finger came to be preserved in a museum in Florence:

When the heretic Galileo died in 1642, the Roman Catholic church could not bring itself to let his remains be buried in consecrated ground. Ninety-five years later, however, the church relented, and his remains were exhumed, relocated to the church of Santa Croce in Florence, and placed inside an impressive marble memorial, directly opposite a similar memorial to Michelangelo (another local who had his fair share of run-ins with the pope).

During the exhumation of Galileo’s remains, on 12th March, 1737, the antiquary Anton Francesco Gori removed the middle finger of Galileo’s right hand. The finger was later placed it inside a glass cup and set upon an alabaster plinth bearing a verse by Tommaso Perelli, which translates from the original Latin as follows:

This is the finger, belonging to the illustrious hand
That ran through the skies,
Pointing at the immense spaces, and singling out new stars,
Offering to the senses a marvellous apparatus
Of crafted glass,
And with wise daring they could
Reach where neither Enceladus nor Tiphaeus ever reached

That’s antiquaries for you, I guess.

Galileo’s lens
IMSS, Florence

But sitting right next to Galileo’s finger in the museum display case was a proper scientific relic—an artefact far more important and moving than a few desiccated carpal bones: the actual piece of crafted glass referred to in Perelli’s poem; the original objective lens from the telescope Galileo used to discover the first four satellites of Jupiter, thereby proving beyond doubt to any reasonable person that not all heavenly bodies orbit the Earth.

The sights Galileo saw through that small piece of glass shook the world.

And then, in the next room, there they were: a couple of Galileo’s original telescopes. Holy crap!

Galileo’s lenses and telescopes are surely the right kinds of scientific relics to gawp at in awe; not some pseudo-religious bone fragments.

• Santa Croce church, Florence
• The house where Galileo spent the last 11 years of his life, under virtual house-arrest.
• All of my Florentine photos

Last night’s lunar eclipse

Against all the odds, the March skies above the Pennines were crystal clear during last night’s total lunar eclipse, and I managed to get some half-decent photos.