Percival Lowell
Percival Lowell | |
---|---|
Born | Boston, Massachusetts, U.S. | March 13, 1855
Died | November 12, 1916 Flagstaff, Arizona, U.S. | (aged 61)
Resting place | Mars Hill, Lowell Observatory |
Nationality | American |
Education | Noble and Greenough School |
Alma mater | Harvard University |
Known for | Martian canals Asteroids discovered: 793 Arizona (April 9, 1907) |
Scientific career | |
Fields | Astronomy |
Signature | |
Percival Lowell (
Life and career
Early life and work
Percival Lowell was born on March 13, 1855,
Percival graduated from the Noble and Greenough School in 1872 and Harvard College in 1876 with distinction in mathematics.[5] While at Harvard he joined Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity. At his college graduation, he gave a speech, considered very advanced for its time, on the nebular hypothesis. He was later awarded honorary degrees from Amherst College and Clark University.[6] After graduation he ran a cotton mill for six years.[3]
In the 1880s, Lowell traveled extensively in the Far East. In August 1883, he served as a foreign secretary and counselor for a special Korean diplomatic mission to the United States.[7] He lived in Korea for about two months.[3] He also spent significant periods of time in Japan, writing books on Japanese religion, psychology, and behavior. His texts are filled with observations and academic discussions of various aspects of Japanese life, including language, religious practices, economics, travel in Japan, and the development of personality.
Books by Lowell on the Orient include Noto: An Unexplored Corner of Japan (1891) and Occult Japan, or the Way of the Gods (1894), the latter from his third and final trip to the region. His time in Korea inspired Chosön: The Land of the Morning Calm[3] (1886, Boston). The most popular of Lowell's books on the Orient, The Soul of the Far East (1888), contains an early synthesis of some of his ideas that, in essence, postulated that human progress is a function of the qualities of individuality and imagination.[citation needed] The writer Lafcadio Hearn called it a "colossal, splendid, godlike book."[8] At his death he left with his assistant Wrexie Leonard an unpublished manuscript of a book entitled Peaks and Plateaux in the Effect on Tree Life.[8]
Lowell was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1892.[9] He moved back to the United States in 1893.[3] He became determined to study Mars and astronomy as a full-time career after reading Camille Flammarion's La planète Mars.[10] He was particularly interested in the canals of Mars, as drawn by Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli, who was director of the Milan Observatory. The Boston geologist George Russel Agassiz noted that Lowell made the decision to begin his observations after hearing that Schiaparelli began to experience failing eyesight.[11] Beginning in the winter of 1893–94, using his wealth and influence, Lowell dedicated himself to the study of astronomy, founding the observatory which bears his name.[5] He chose Flagstaff, Arizona Territory, as the home of his new observatory. At an altitude of over 2,100 meters (6,900 feet), with few cloudy nights, and far from city lights, Flagstaff was an excellent site for astronomical observations. This marked the first time an observatory had been deliberately located in a remote, elevated place for optimal seeing which included enhanced image quality, sharpness and steadiness.[11][5] At his Flagstaff observatory Lowell favored the use of smaller telescopes rather than larger ones, believing that they were usually better for viewing fine planetary details.[12] He was assisted in setting up his observatory by William Pickering, another observer of Mars who had noted the lines seen by Schiaparelli as well.[13]
Lowell was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1897.[14]
In 1904, Lowell received the Prix Jules Janssen, the highest award of the Société astronomique de France, the French astronomical society. For the last 23 years of his life, astronomy, Lowell Observatory, and his and others' work at his observatory were the focal points of his life.
World War I very much saddened Lowell, a dedicated pacifist. This, along with some setbacks in his astronomical work (described below), undermined his health and contributed to his death from a stroke on November 12, 1916, aged 61.[15] Lowell is buried on Mars Hill near his observatory.[16] Lowell claimed to "stick to the church" though at least one current author describes him as an agnostic.[17]
Canals of Mars
For some fifteen years (1893 to about 1908) Lowell studied Mars extensively, making intricate drawings of the surface markings as he perceived them. Lowell published his views in three books: Mars (1895), Mars and Its Canals (1906), and Mars As the Abode of Life (1908). With these writings, Lowell more than anyone else popularized the long-held belief that these markings showed that Mars sustained intelligent life forms.[18][19]
His works include a detailed description of what he termed the "non-natural features" of the planet's surface, including especially a full account of the "canals," single and double; the "oases," as he termed the dark spots at their intersections; and the varying visibility of both, depending partly on the Martian seasons. He theorized that an advanced but desperate culture had built the canals to tap Mars' polar ice caps, the last source of water on an inexorably drying planet.[20]
While this idea excited the public, the astronomical community was skeptical. Many astronomers could not see these markings, and few believed that they were as extensive as Lowell claimed. As a result, Lowell and his observatory were largely ostracized.[21] Although the consensus was that some actual features did exist which would account for these markings,[22] in 1909 the sixty-inch Mount Wilson Observatory telescope in Southern California allowed closer observation of the structures Lowell had interpreted as canals, and revealed irregular geological features, probably the result of natural erosion.[23]
The existence of canal-like features was definitively disproved in the 1960s by NASA's Mariner missions. Mariner 4, 6 and 7, and the Mariner 9 orbiter (1972), did not capture images of canals but instead showed a cratered Martian surface. Today, the surface markings taken to be canals are regarded as an optical illusion.[24] Psychologist Matthew J. Sharps has argued that perception of the canals by Lowell and others could have been the result of a combination of psychological factors, including individual differences, Gestalt reconfiguration, and sociocognitive factors.[25]
Venus spokes
Although Lowell was better known for his observations of Mars, he also drew maps of the planet
Pluto
Lowell's greatest contribution to planetary studies came during the last decade of his life, which he devoted to the search for
In 1930,
Pluto's mass could not be determined until 1978, when its satellite Charon was discovered. This confirmed what had been increasingly suspected: Pluto's gravitational influence on Uranus and Neptune is negligible, not nearly enough to account for the discrepancies in their orbits.[32] In 2006, Pluto was reclassified as a dwarf planet by the International Astronomical Union.
In addition, the discrepancies between the predicted and observed positions of Uranus and Neptune were found not to be caused by the gravity of an unknown planet. Rather, they were due to an erroneous value for the mass of Neptune. Voyager 2's 1989 encounter with Neptune yielded a more accurate value of its mass, and the discrepancies disappeared when using this value.[33]
Legacy
Although Lowell's theories of the Martian canals, of surface features on Venus, and of Planet X are now discredited, his practice of building observatories at the position where they would best function has been adopted as a principle.
While eventually disproved, Lowell's vision of the Martian canals, as an artifact of an ancient civilization making a desperate last effort to survive, significantly influences the development of science fiction – starting with H. G. Wells' influential 1898 novel The War of the Worlds, which made the further logical inference that creatures from a dying planet might seek to invade Earth.
The image of the dying Mars and its ancient culture was retained, in numerous versions and variations, in most science fiction works depicting Mars in the first half of the twentieth century (see Mars in fiction). Even when proven to be factually mistaken, the vision of Mars derived from his theories remains enshrined in works that remain in print and widely read as classics of science fiction.
Lowell's influence on science fiction remains strong. The canals figure prominently in Red Planet by Robert A. Heinlein (1949) and The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury (1950). The canals, and even Lowell's mausoleum, heavily influence The Gods of Mars (1918) by Edgar Rice Burroughs as well as all other books in the Barsoom series.
Asteroid
On 13 March 2006, Google celebrated Percival Lowell’s 151st Birthday with a doodle. The traffic led to a couple instances of vandalism. [40][41]
Publications
- The Soul of the Far East (1888)
- Noto: An Unexplored Corner of Japan (1891)
- Occult Japan, or the Way of the Gods (1894)
- Collected Writings on Japan and Asia, including Letters to Amy Lowell and Lafcadio Hearn, 5 vols., Tokyo: Edition Synapse. ISBN 978-4-901481-48-9
- Chosön: The Land of the Morning Calm; a Sketch of Korea. Ticknor. 1886.
- Mars (1895)
- Mars and Its Canals (1906)
- Mars As the Abode of Life (1908)
- The Evolution of Worlds (1910) (Full text at The Evolution of Worlds.)
See also
References
- ^ Eschner, Kat (March 13, 2017). "The Bizarre Beliefs of Astronomer Percival Lowell". Smithsonian Magazine. Retrieved March 12, 2021.
- JSTOR 20025724.
- ^ a b c d e f "Chosön, the Land of the Morning Calm; a Sketch of Korea". World Digital Library. 1888. Retrieved June 11, 2013.
- ^ Lowell, Delmar R., The Historic Genealogy of the Lowells of America from 1639 to 1899 (Rutland VT: The Tuttle Company, 1899), 283
- ^ ISBN 0-486-43602-0.
- ^ Balik, Rachel (March 13, 2010) Happy Birthday Percival Lowell, First Man to Imagine Life on Mars Archived March 15, 2009, at the Wayback Machine. findingdulcinea.com
- ^ See under Empress Myeongseong Progressives vs Conservatives
- ^ a b Leonard, Louise. Percival Lowell: An Afterglow. RG Badger, 1921, pp. 33, 46.
- ^ "Book of Members, 1780–2019: Chapter L" (PDF). American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Retrieved March 12, 2021.
- ISBN 0-7137-2747-0.
- ^ OCLC 49414656.
- OCLC 2390580.
- S2CID 117637626.
- ^ "APS Member History". search.amphilsoc.org. Retrieved March 1, 2024.
- ISBN 0684832526.
- ^ McKim, R. (1995). "Astronomy on Mars Hill". Journal of the British Astronomical Society. 105: 69–74.
- ISBN 9780674002913.
Though Lowell claimed to 'stick to the church' (doubtless from my early religious training), he was an agnostic and hostile to Christianity.
- ISBN 0801880262.
- ^ Dunlap, David W. (October 1, 2015). "Life on Mars? You Read It Here First". The New York Times. Archived from the original on October 2, 2015. Retrieved June 17, 2022.
- ISBN 0-8014-1680-9. pp. 355–56.
- ISBN 0684832526.
- ISBN 0801880262.
- ISBN 0-8014-1680-9.
- ISBN 1-932100-55-5.
- ^ Sharps, Matthew (2018). "Percival Lowell and the Canals of Mars". Skeptical Inquirer. 42 (3): 41–46.
- ^ "SkyandTelescope.com – News from Sky & Telescope – Venus Spokes: An Explanation at Last?". Archived from the original on February 21, 2009. Retrieved June 5, 2008.
- ISSN 0021-8286, Vol. 34, Part 1, No. 114, pp. 53–63 (2003) via SAO/NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)
- ^ ISBN 0-275-98719-1.
- ^ Bibcode:1946ASPL....5...73T.
- Buie, Marc W. (August 11, 2008). "Orbit Fit and Astrometric record for 134340". SwRI (Space Science Department). Retrieved February 21, 2010.
- ^ Symbol: (in case unicode character not shown in text)
- ISBN 0-521-52927-1.
- ISBN 0802713637. p. 188
- ISBN 0-8047-2131-9.
- S2CID 12006144.
- ISBN 978-3-540-00238-3.
- ^ "Lunar crater Lowell". Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature. USGS Astrogeology Research Program.
- ^ "Martian crater Lowell". Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature. USGS Astrogeology Research Program.
- ^ "Lowell Regio". Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature. USGS Astrogeology Research Program.
- ^ Desk, OV Digital (March 12, 2023). "13 March: Remembering Percival Lowell on Birthday". Observer Voice. Retrieved March 13, 2023.
- ^ Percival Lowell's 151st Birthday, retrieved March 13, 2023
Further reading
- K., Zahnel (2001). "Decline and Fall of the Martian Empire". Nature. 412 (6843): 209–13. S2CID 22725986.
- R., Crossley (2000). "Percival Lowell and the history of Mars". Massachusetts Review. 41 (3): 297–318.
- D., Strauss (1994). "Lowell, Percival, Pickering, W. H. and the founding of the Lowell Observatory". Annals of Science. 51 (1): 37–58. .
- J., Trefil (1988). "Turn-of-the-Century American Astronomer Lowell, Percival". Smithsonian. 18 (10): 34–.
- B., Meyer W. (1984). "Life on Mars is almost Certain + Lowell, Percival on Exobiology". American Heritage. 35 (2): 38–43.
- S., Hetherington N. (1981). "Lowell, Percival – Professional Scientist or Interloper". Journal of the History of Ideas. 42 (1): 159–61. JSTOR 2709423.
- C., Heffernan W. (1981). "Lowell, Percival and the Debate over Extraterrestrial Life". Journal of the History of Ideas. 42 (3): 527–30. JSTOR 2709191.
- Webb G. E. (1980). "The Planet Mars and Science in Victorian America". Journal of American Culture. 3 (4): 573. .
- Hoyt W. G.; G., Wesley W. (1977). "Lowell and Mars". American Journal of Physics. 45 (3): 316–17. doi:10.1119/1.10630.
- K., Hofling C. (1964). "Percival Lowell and the Canals of Mars". British Journal of Medical Psychology. 37 (1): 33–42. PMID 14116519.
External links
- Quotations related to Percival Lowell at Wikiquote
- Media related to Percival Lowell at Wikimedia Commons
- Works by Percival Lowell at Project Gutenberg
- Works by or about Percival Lowell at Internet Archive
- Works by Percival Lowell at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
- Lowell Observatory
- Percival Lowell at Find a Grave
- BBC Science: Percival Lowell Archived March 7, 2017, at the Wayback Machine
- Percival Lowell at Library of Congress, with 17 library catalog records