Edmund Halley had a long and prolific career. He was a sea-captain, cartographer, a professor of geometry in Oxford University, Deputy Controller of the Royal Mint, Astronomer and invented deep sea diving bell. He had publications on magnetism, tides, orbit of planets and effects of opium, possibly after first hand experience. He designed the weather map and actuarial table, proposed methods for understanding age of the sun and the earth and the distance between them. He also devised a method to keep fish fresh out of season. The only thing the genius did not do was he did not discover the comet which bears his name!!!
He merely recognized the comet he saw in 1682 that it was the same comet which appeared in 1456, 1531 and 1607. But sixteen years after he died, the comet was named after him for his finding that it appeared after every 76 years or so!
Halley wrote the History of Fish, which was published by the Royal Society, but was not received by the readers well, amd most copies were lying in the library. Very few people read it or bought it. But what it actually achieved is one of the greatest contributions to human knowledge.
So, here was a multifaceted man, a genius, who excelled in many fields, but was known for a comet he did not discover. He wrote a book, which was not received by the peers well. But the same book possibly changed the world and the way the world thought!!!
In 1683, Halley was dining with Hooke (who first discovered a cell and said it was the unit of life) and Wren, an astronomer and architect, people were really versatile then!!After few minutes, the discussion drifted to celestial objects which were always the subject of all intellectual meetings of those years as very little was really known, and most of it was only being guessed - uncertain.It was known that the orbits of the planet was elliptical.The planets were inclined to the orbit in a funny way, and went about on their tracks in a kind of oval path, a very specific and precise curve. But no one explained why!! Wren, being the gregarious guy that he was offered a couple of weeks wager to the person who could solve this mystery - 40 shillings.
Hooke, though himself a brilliant scientist, at times did not hesitate for taking credit for what he did not do; claimed he had solved it, but would keep it secret so as to allow others to solve them independently! But Halley took his mission straight. He set out to Cambridge; and called upon the Lucasian professor of Mathematics. The professor was a funny figure, one who used to get up from bed, and keep sitting on it hanging his legs down and swinging them aimlessly. He was solitary, joyless, prickly to the point, but brilliant beyong measure. One who after waking up, used to sit straight, stunned; with the explosions of ideas that might have hit his brains in the morning. He was Sir Isaac Newton.
We are not sure if the apple really hit him on his head when he was relaxing under a tree; but we have records that the adamant scientist once pierced a needle into his eye, between the socket and the bone to see how far the eye ball extended, and how was it roomed in the bony socket. To understand what damage the powerful sunrays could cause to his eyes, he stared at the bright sun for hours. And had to spend several days in the dark room to let his stunned eyes gain their vision. Without that lacing of lunacy and tinge of madness, no genius can be complete!! To prove this right as if, Newton spent a considerable time on alchemy and religious practice. They were not mere dabblings as many do. He was -albeit secretly - a follower of arianism, he spent years in Jerusalem, learning Hebrew, studying the floor plan of the palace of King Solomon. Though he studies in the Trinity College, he did not believe in the doctrine of Trinity - being a follower of Arianism. He spent days calculating from the texts in Hebrew, the second coming of Christ and end of the world!! Interestingly, when some of his papers were auctioned, John Keynes (the buyer) found loads of materials - not on his theories of Physics - but on how to convert ordinary metal to precious ones (though he did not succeed in it). An analysis of his hair revealed that he had 40 times the natural level of mercury in his hair. You have to remember, those days mercury did attract the attention of the alchemists!!
Set atop his quirky traits, eccentric character, odd beliefs and unpredictable behaviour was the mind of a super genius. As a student, being frustrated with the limitations of conventional mathematics, he invented a brand new mathematical form - Calculus. But the eccentric genius kept it to himself for over twenty seven years. Likewise, his work on optics and light rayes was kept hidden for three decades, before the light theory saw the light of the day and changed the way we thought about light.
Halley had done his homework, and he knew he was meeting the world's greatest genius of that time. Newtons confidant, Abraham DeMoivre, was of big help to Halley and maintained a record. The moment Halley posed the question, pat came the reply "the path will be elliptical," from Newton. Amazed and happy; Halley asked "how". Newton went in to search for the papers where he had already calculated the pathway based on the principles of inverse square root; but could not really found the paper out where he had made the calculations.
Providence had something larger in its design!
With a little help from Abraham DeMoivre, his butler, Halley gained Newton's confidence. Newton did tell Halley why the orbit would be elliptical, but at that point of time, forgot how he found out this formula. Pressed by Halley and persuaded by his butler, Newton agreed to redo the calculations. He did what he promised and did more than that actually. He went into his hibernation for two years, and produced what would ppossibly be the greatest treatise in Physics. The work was titled Mathematical Principles of Natural History, better known as Prnicipia!!!Newton was the first scientist to be knighted following this astounding work. Even his bitter critic, Leibniz, with whom he had a very acidic relation following the debate about who first invented calculus, was eloquent in his praise for Principia, saying, this was a contribution to mathematics which equals all other works put together in mathematics thus far!!
Newton deliberately made the Principia tough for the laymen, making it inaccessible to most. He not only discussed in it the orbits of the heavenly bodies, but also wrote about Gravity. It stated that every object in the universe attracts everything else!! He also realized that the force of this attraction was proportional to the mass of the objects. and inversely proportional to the square of of the distance.
But what about the History of Fishes???
Well, the publication of Principia was not without any Newtonian drama. Just as Newton was nearing the completion of the epic, he and Hooke fell out and Newton refused to release the third volume. Halley tried his best and with a bit of flattery and a lot of persuation got the third volume out. The Royal Society pulled out from publishing it citing financial limitations.Halley, whose financial means were nothing great, went ahead paying for the publication. Newton, as was his style, did not contribute any thing financially. Halley had meanwhile accepted the position of a clerk in the Royal Society at a salary of fifty pund sterlings a pear. After spending all that he had saved - on publishing the book, he depended on his job to make both ends meet. But, the society could no longer afford to pay him the salary for his job.
He was paid instead in copies of The History of Fishes.
Thus the History of Fishes made it possible to bring to light the greatest work in Physics - Principia!!!!
He merely recognized the comet he saw in 1682 that it was the same comet which appeared in 1456, 1531 and 1607. But sixteen years after he died, the comet was named after him for his finding that it appeared after every 76 years or so!
Halley wrote the History of Fish, which was published by the Royal Society, but was not received by the readers well, amd most copies were lying in the library. Very few people read it or bought it. But what it actually achieved is one of the greatest contributions to human knowledge.
So, here was a multifaceted man, a genius, who excelled in many fields, but was known for a comet he did not discover. He wrote a book, which was not received by the peers well. But the same book possibly changed the world and the way the world thought!!!
In 1683, Halley was dining with Hooke (who first discovered a cell and said it was the unit of life) and Wren, an astronomer and architect, people were really versatile then!!After few minutes, the discussion drifted to celestial objects which were always the subject of all intellectual meetings of those years as very little was really known, and most of it was only being guessed - uncertain.It was known that the orbits of the planet was elliptical.The planets were inclined to the orbit in a funny way, and went about on their tracks in a kind of oval path, a very specific and precise curve. But no one explained why!! Wren, being the gregarious guy that he was offered a couple of weeks wager to the person who could solve this mystery - 40 shillings.
Hooke, though himself a brilliant scientist, at times did not hesitate for taking credit for what he did not do; claimed he had solved it, but would keep it secret so as to allow others to solve them independently! But Halley took his mission straight. He set out to Cambridge; and called upon the Lucasian professor of Mathematics. The professor was a funny figure, one who used to get up from bed, and keep sitting on it hanging his legs down and swinging them aimlessly. He was solitary, joyless, prickly to the point, but brilliant beyong measure. One who after waking up, used to sit straight, stunned; with the explosions of ideas that might have hit his brains in the morning. He was Sir Isaac Newton.
We are not sure if the apple really hit him on his head when he was relaxing under a tree; but we have records that the adamant scientist once pierced a needle into his eye, between the socket and the bone to see how far the eye ball extended, and how was it roomed in the bony socket. To understand what damage the powerful sunrays could cause to his eyes, he stared at the bright sun for hours. And had to spend several days in the dark room to let his stunned eyes gain their vision. Without that lacing of lunacy and tinge of madness, no genius can be complete!! To prove this right as if, Newton spent a considerable time on alchemy and religious practice. They were not mere dabblings as many do. He was -albeit secretly - a follower of arianism, he spent years in Jerusalem, learning Hebrew, studying the floor plan of the palace of King Solomon. Though he studies in the Trinity College, he did not believe in the doctrine of Trinity - being a follower of Arianism. He spent days calculating from the texts in Hebrew, the second coming of Christ and end of the world!! Interestingly, when some of his papers were auctioned, John Keynes (the buyer) found loads of materials - not on his theories of Physics - but on how to convert ordinary metal to precious ones (though he did not succeed in it). An analysis of his hair revealed that he had 40 times the natural level of mercury in his hair. You have to remember, those days mercury did attract the attention of the alchemists!!
Set atop his quirky traits, eccentric character, odd beliefs and unpredictable behaviour was the mind of a super genius. As a student, being frustrated with the limitations of conventional mathematics, he invented a brand new mathematical form - Calculus. But the eccentric genius kept it to himself for over twenty seven years. Likewise, his work on optics and light rayes was kept hidden for three decades, before the light theory saw the light of the day and changed the way we thought about light.
Halley had done his homework, and he knew he was meeting the world's greatest genius of that time. Newtons confidant, Abraham DeMoivre, was of big help to Halley and maintained a record. The moment Halley posed the question, pat came the reply "the path will be elliptical," from Newton. Amazed and happy; Halley asked "how". Newton went in to search for the papers where he had already calculated the pathway based on the principles of inverse square root; but could not really found the paper out where he had made the calculations.
Providence had something larger in its design!
With a little help from Abraham DeMoivre, his butler, Halley gained Newton's confidence. Newton did tell Halley why the orbit would be elliptical, but at that point of time, forgot how he found out this formula. Pressed by Halley and persuaded by his butler, Newton agreed to redo the calculations. He did what he promised and did more than that actually. He went into his hibernation for two years, and produced what would ppossibly be the greatest treatise in Physics. The work was titled Mathematical Principles of Natural History, better known as Prnicipia!!!Newton was the first scientist to be knighted following this astounding work. Even his bitter critic, Leibniz, with whom he had a very acidic relation following the debate about who first invented calculus, was eloquent in his praise for Principia, saying, this was a contribution to mathematics which equals all other works put together in mathematics thus far!!
Newton deliberately made the Principia tough for the laymen, making it inaccessible to most. He not only discussed in it the orbits of the heavenly bodies, but also wrote about Gravity. It stated that every object in the universe attracts everything else!! He also realized that the force of this attraction was proportional to the mass of the objects. and inversely proportional to the square of of the distance.
But what about the History of Fishes???
Well, the publication of Principia was not without any Newtonian drama. Just as Newton was nearing the completion of the epic, he and Hooke fell out and Newton refused to release the third volume. Halley tried his best and with a bit of flattery and a lot of persuation got the third volume out. The Royal Society pulled out from publishing it citing financial limitations.Halley, whose financial means were nothing great, went ahead paying for the publication. Newton, as was his style, did not contribute any thing financially. Halley had meanwhile accepted the position of a clerk in the Royal Society at a salary of fifty pund sterlings a pear. After spending all that he had saved - on publishing the book, he depended on his job to make both ends meet. But, the society could no longer afford to pay him the salary for his job.
He was paid instead in copies of The History of Fishes.
Thus the History of Fishes made it possible to bring to light the greatest work in Physics - Principia!!!!
Halley and Newton in photographs. Unfortunately, Hooke did not have a photograph; and the photograph which was thought to be his, was not his!!
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