Rough Ways Made Smooth: A series of familiar essays on scientific subjectsProctor, Richard A. (Richard Anthony)
Science
Rough Ways Made Smooth: A series of familiar essays on scientific subjects
Proctor, Richard A. (Richard Anthony)
Science
But this is not quite all. Professor Watson saw another body, which
in his opinion was a planet. I have already mentioned that he thought
Zeta remarkably bright. It seemed to him a star of nearly the third
magnitude, whereas Zeta Cancri is only of the fifth. Nay, speaking of
the planet near Theta, and of this star which he took for Zeta, he
says, 'they were probably really brighter [than the 4-1/2 and 3-1/2
magnitude respectively], because the illumination of the sky was not
considered in the estimates.' Before he had thoroughly examined the
pencil marks on his card circles, and made the necessary calculations,
he supposed the brighter star to be Zeta, because he did not see the
latter star. But when he examined his result carefully, he found that
the bright star was set (according to his pencil marks) more than
one degree east of Zeta. Writing on August 22, he says, 'The more I
consider the case the more improbable it seems to me that the second
star which I observed, and thought it might be Zeta, was that known
star. I was not certain, in this case, whether the wind had disturbed
the telescope or not. As it had not done so in the case of any other of
six pointings which I recorded, it seems almost certain that the second
was a new star.' It would be easy to understand why Professor Watson
had not seen Zeta, for he only swept as far as the star he mistook for
Zeta, and, as the accompanying figure shows, Zeta was beyond that star
on the west.[6]
Fig. 4 represents the apparent result of the observations made by
Professors Watson and Swift, if all the observations are regarded
as trustworthy. The six stars shown in the figure were probably the
six referred to in the preceding paragraph. The two unnamed ones are
well-known red stars.
[Illustration: Fig. 4.--Showing all the stars observed by Watson and
Swift.]
Let it be noticed, that we cannot reject planet 1, without rejecting
all Watson's observations. We cannot reject planet 2, without rejecting
all Swift's observations. We cannot set this planet to the left of
Theta without throwing doubt on Watson's observations. If Watson swept
over Theta westward without seeing 2, Swift must have made some mistake
as yet unexplained. As for planet 3, if we admit the possibility
that this object really was Zeta, we must admit also the possibility
that the object marked as planet 1 was really Theta, or rather we
should have to do so, were it not that Watson saw Theta also, and (I
suppose) in the same field of view, since he speaks confidently of the
inferiority of Theta in brightness.
It should further be noticed, that though Swift's and Watson's
observations by no means agree in details, they do in reality support
each other (unless Watson should definitely assert that no star as
bright as Theta existed either to the west or to the east of that star,
at the distance indicated by Swift.) For they agree in indicating the
existence of small planets near the sun, such as can only be seen with
the telescope.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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