President of the Royal Astronomical Society
John Couch Adams took which position from 1851 to 1853?
John Couch Adams John Couch Adams FRSE FRAS LLD ( ; 5 June 1819 – 21 January 1892 ) was a British mathematician and astronomer . He was born in Laneast , near Launceston , Cornwall , and died in Cambridge . His most famous achievement was predicting the existence and position of Neptune , using only mathematics . The calculations were made to explain discrepancies with Uranuss orbit and the laws of Kepler and Newton . At the same time , but unknown to each other , the same calculations were made by Urbain Le Verrier . Le Verrier would send his coordinates to Berlin Observatory astronomer Johann Gottfried Galle , who confirmed the existence of the planet on 23 September 1846 , finding it within 1° of Le Verriers predicted location ( there was , and to some extent still is , some controversy over the apportionment of credit for the discovery ; see Discovery of Neptune ) . Adams was Lowndean Professor in the University of Cambridge from 1859 until his death . He won the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1866 . In 1884 , he attended the International Meridian Conference as a delegate for Britain . A crater on the Moon is jointly named after him , Walter Sydney Adams and Charles Hitchcock Adams . Neptunes outermost known ring and the asteroid 1996 Adams are also named after him . The Adams Prize , presented by the University of Cambridge , commemorates his prediction of the position of Neptune . His personal library is held at Cambridge University Library . Early life . Adams was born at Lidcot , a farm at Laneast , near Launceston , Cornwall , the eldest of seven children . His parents were Thomas Adams ( 1788–1859 ) , a poor tenant farmer , and his wife , Tabitha Knill Grylls ( 1796–1866 ) . The family were devout Wesleyans who enjoyed music and among Johns brothers , Thomas became a missionary , George a farmer , and William Grylls Adams , professor of natural philosophy and astronomy at Kings College London . Tabitha was a farmers daughter but had received a rudimentary education from John Couch , her uncle , whose small library she had inherited . John was intrigued by the astronomy books from an early age . John attended the Laneast village school where he acquired some Greek and algebra . From there , he went , at the age of twelve , to Devonport , where his mothers cousin , the Rev . John Couch Grylls , kept a private school . There he learned classics but was largely self-taught in mathematics , studying in the Library of Devonport Mechanics Institute and reading Reess Cyclopædia and Samuel Vinces Fluxions . He observed Halleys comet in 1835 from Landulph and the following year started to make his own astronomical calculations , predictions and observations , engaging in private tutoring to finance his activities . In 1836 , his mother inherited a small estate at Badharlick and his promise as a mathematician induced his parents to send him to the University of Cambridge . In October 1839 he entered as a sizar at St Johns College , graduating B.A . in 1843 as senior wrangler and first Smiths prizewinner of his year . Discovery of Neptune . In 1821 , Alexis Bouvard had published astronomical tables of the orbit of Uranus , making predictions of future positions based on Newtons laws of motion and gravitation . Subsequent observations revealed substantial deviations from the tables , leading Bouvard to hypothesise some perturbing body . Adams learnt of the irregularities while still an undergraduate and became convinced of the perturbation theory . Adams believed , in the face of anything that had been attempted before , that he could use the observed data on Uranus , and utilising nothing more than Newtons law of gravitation , deduce the mass , position and orbit of the perturbing body . On 3 July 1841 , he noted his intention to work on the problem . After his final examinations in 1843 , Adams was elected fellow of his college and spent the summer vacation in Cornwall calculating the first of six iterations . While he worked on the problem back in Cambridge , he tutored undergraduates , sending money home to educate his brothers , and even taught his bed maker to read . Apparently , Adams communicated his work to James Challis , director of the Cambridge Observatory , in mid-September 1845 , but there is some controversy as to how . On 21 October 1845 , Adams , returning from a Cornwall vacation , without appointment , twice called on Astronomer Royal George Biddell Airy in Greenwich . Failing to find him at home , Adams reputedly left a manuscript of his solution , again without the detailed calculations . Airy responded with a letter to Adams asking for some clarification . It appears that Adams did not regard the question as trivial , as is often alleged , but he failed to complete a response . Various theories have been discussed as to Adamss failure to reply , such as his general nervousness , procrastination and disorganisation . Meanwhile , Urbain Le Verrier , on 10 November 1845 , presented to the Académie des sciences in Paris a memoir on Uranus , showing that the preexisting theory failed to account for its motion . On reading Le Verriers memoir , Airy was struck by the coincidence and initiated a desperate race for English priority in discovery of the planet . The search was begun by a laborious method on 29 July . Only after the discovery of Neptune on 23 September 1846 had been announced in Paris did it become apparent that Neptune had been observed on 8 and 12 August but because Challis lacked an up-to-date star-map it was not recognized as a planet . A keen controversy arose in France and England as to the merits of the two astronomers . As the facts became known , there was wide recognition that the two astronomers had independently solved the problem of Uranus , and each was ascribed equal importance . However , there have been subsequent assertions that The Brits Stole Neptune and that Adamss British contemporaries retrospectively ascribed him more credit than he was due . But it is also notable ( and not included in some of the foregoing discussion references ) that Adams himself publicly acknowledged Le Verriers priority and credit ( not forgetting to mention the role of Galle ) in the paper that he gave On the Perturbations of Uranus to the Royal Astronomical Society in November 1846 : Adams held no bitterness towards Challis or Airy and acknowledged his own failure to convince the astronomical world : Work style . His lay fellowship at St Johns College came to an end in 1852 , and the existing statutes did not permit his re-election . However , Pembroke College , which possessed greater freedom , elected him in the following year to a lay fellowship which he held for the rest of his life . Despite the fame of his work on Neptune , Adams also did much important work on gravitational astronomy and terrestrial magnetism . He was particularly adept at fine numerical calculations , often making substantial revisions to the contributions of his predecessors . However , he was extraordinarily uncompetitive , reluctant to publish imperfect work to stimulate debate or claim priority , averse to correspondence about it , and forgetful in practical matters . It has been suggested that these are symptoms of Asperger syndrome which would also be consistent with the repetitive behaviours and restricted interests necessary to perform the Neptune calculations , in addition to his difficulties in personal interaction with Challis and Airy . In 1852 , he published new and accurate tables of the Moons parallax , which superseded Johann Karl Burckhardts , and supplied corrections to the theories of Marie-Charles Damoiseau , Giovanni Antonio Amedeo Plana , and Philippe Gustave Doulcet . He had hoped that this work would leverage him into the vacant post as superintendent of HM Nautical Almanac Office but John Russell Hind was preferred , Adams lacking the necessary ability as an organiser and administrator . Lunar theory — Secular acceleration of the Moon . Since ancient times , the Moons mean rate of motion relative to the stars had been treated as being constant , but in 1695 , Edmond Halley had suggested that this mean rate was gradually increasing . Later , during the eighteenth century , Richard Dunthorne estimated the rate as +10 ( arcseconds/century ) in terms of the resulting difference in lunar longitude , an effect that became known as the secular acceleration of the Moon . Pierre-Simon Laplace had given an explanation in 1787 in terms of changes in the eccentricity of the Earths orbit . He considered only the radial gravitational force on the Moon from the Sun and Earth but obtained close agreement with the historical record of observations . In 1820 , at the insistence of the Académie des sciences , Damoiseau , Plana and Francesco Carlini revisited Laplaces work , investigating quadratic and higher-order perturbing terms , and obtained similar results , again addressing only a radial , and neglecting tangential , gravitational force on the Moon . Hansen obtained similar results in 1842 and 1847 . In 1853 , Adams published a paper showing that , while tangential terms vanish in the first-order theory of Laplace , they become substantial when quadratic terms are admitted . Small terms integrated in time come to have large effects and Adams concluded that Plana had overestimated the secular acceleration by approximately 1.66 per century . At first , Le Verrier rejected Adamss results . In 1856 , Plana admitted Adamss conclusions , claiming to have revised his own analysis and arrived at the same results . However , he soon recanted , publishing a third result different both from Adamss and Planas own earlier work . Delaunay in 1859 calculated the fourth-order term and duplicated Adamss result leading Adams to publish his own calculations for the fifth , sixth and seventh-order terms . Adams now calculated that only 5.7 of the observed 11 was accounted for by gravitational effects . Later that year , Philippe Gustave Doulcet , Comte de Pontécoulant published a claim that the tangential force could have no effect though Peter Andreas Hansen , who seems to have cast himself in the role of arbitrator , declared that the burden of proof rested on Pontécoulant , while lamenting the need to discover a further effect to account for the balance . Much of the controversy centred around the convergence of the power series expansion used and , in 1860 , Adams duplicated his results without using a power series . Sir John Lubbock also duplicated Adamss results and Plana finally concurred . Adamss view was ultimately accepted and further developed , winning him the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1866 . The unexplained drift is now known to be due to tidal acceleration . In 1858 Adams became professor of mathematics at the University of St Andrews , but lectured only for a session , before returning to Cambridge for the Lowndean professorship of astronomy and geometry . Two years later he succeeded Challis as director of the Cambridge Observatory , a post Adams held until his death . The Leonids . The great meteor shower of November 1866 turned his attention to the Leonids , whose probable path and period had already been discussed and predicted by Hubert Anson Newton in 1864 . Newton had asserted that the longitude of the ascending node , that marked where the shower would occur , was increasing and the problem of explaining this variation attracted some of Europes leading astronomers . Using a powerful and elaborate analysis , Adams ascertained that this cluster of meteors , which belongs to the Solar System , traverses an elongated ellipse in 33.25 years , and is subject to definite perturbations from the larger planets , Jupiter , Saturn , and Uranus . These results were published in 1867 . Some experts consider this Adamss most substantial achievement . His definitive orbit for the Leonids coincided with that of the comet 55P/Tempel-Tuttle and thereby suggested the , later widely accepted , close relationship between comets and meteors . Later career . Ten years later , George William Hill described a novel and elegant method for attacking the problem of lunar motion . Adams briefly announced his own unpublished work in the same field , which , following a parallel course had confirmed and supplemented Hills . Over a period of forty years , he periodically addressed the determination of the constants in Carl Friedrich Gausss theory of terrestrial magnetism . Again , the calculations involved great labour , and were not published during his lifetime . They were edited by his brother , William Grylls Adams , and appear in the second volume of the collected Scientific Papers . Numerical computation of this kind might almost be described as his pastime . He calculated the Euler–Mascheroni constant , perhaps somewhat eccentrically , to 236 decimal places and evaluated the Bernoulli numbers up to the 62nd . Adams had boundless admiration for Newton and his writings and many of his papers bear the cast of Newtons thought . In 1872 , Isaac Newton Wallop , 5th Earl of Portsmouth , donated his private collection of Newtons papers to Cambridge University . Adams and G . G . Stokes took on the task of arranging the material , publishing a catalogue in 1888 . The post of Astronomer Royal was offered him in 1881 , but he preferred to pursue his teaching and research in Cambridge . He was British delegate to the International Meridian Conference at Washington in 1884 , when he also attended the meetings of the British Association at Montreal and of the American Association at Philadelphia . Honours . - 1847 He is reputed to have been offered a knighthood on Queen Victorias 1847 Cambridge visit but to have declined , either out of modesty , or fear of the financial consequences of such social distinction ; - 1847 Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences ; - 1848 Copley medal of the Royal Society ; - 1848 Adams Prize , founded by the members of St Johns College , to be given biennially for the best treatise on a mathematical subject ; - 1849 Elected Fellow of the Royal Society of London and Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh ; - 1851 and 1874 President of the Royal Astronomical Society ( 1851–1853 and 1874–1876 ) . Family and death . After a long illness , Adams died at Cambridge on 21 January 1892 and was buried near his home in St Giles Cemetery , now the Parish of the Ascension Burial Ground in Cambridge . In 1863 he had married Miss Eliza Bruce ( 1827–1919 ) , of Dublin , who survived him , and is buried with him . His wealth at death was £32,434 ( £2.6 million at 2003 prices ) . Memorials . - Memorial in Westminster Abbey with a portrait medallion , by Albert Bruce-Joy ; - A bust , by Joy in the hall of St Johns College , Cambridge ; - Another youthful bust belongs to the Royal Astronomical Society ; - Portraits by : - Hubert von Herkomer in Pembroke College ; - Paul Raphael Montord in the combination room of St Johns ; - A memorial tablet , with an inscription by Archbishop Benson , in Truro Cathedral ; - Passmore Edwards erected a public institute in his honour at Launceston , near his birthplace ; - Adams Nunatak , a nunatak on Neptune Glacier in Alexander Island in Antarctica , is named after him . Obituaries . - The Times , 22 January 1892 , p . 6 col.d ( link on this page ) - [ Anon. ] ( 1891–92 ) Journal of the British Astronomical Association 2 : 196–7 About Adams and the discovery of Neptune . - from Project Gutenberg - Doggett , L . E . ( 1997 ) Celestial mechanics , in - Harrison , H . M ( 1994 ) . Voyager in Time and Space : The Life of John Couch Adams , Cambridge Astronomer . Lewes : Book Guild , By Adams . - Adams , J . C. , ed . W . G . Adams & R . A . Sampson ( 1896–1900 ) The Scientific Papers of John Couch Adams , 2 vols , London : Cambridge University Press , with a memoir by J . W . L . Glaisher : - Vol.1 ( 1896 ) Previously published writings ; - Vol.2 ( 1900 ) Manuscripts including the substance of his lectures on the Lunar Theory . - Adams , J . C. , ed . R . A . Sampson ( 1900 ) Lectures on the Lunar Theory , London : Cambridge University Press - A collection , virtually complete , of Adamss papers regarding the discovery of Neptune was presented by Mrs Adams to the library of St Johns College , see : Sampson ( 1904 ) , and also : - The collected papers of Prof . Adams , Journal of the British Astronomical Association , 7 ( 1896–97 ) - Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society , 53 184 ; - Observatory , 15 174 ; - Nature , 34 565 ; 45 301 ; - Astronomical Journal , No.254 ; - R . Grant , History of Physical Astronomy , p . 168 ; and - Edinburgh Review , No.381 , p . 72 . - The papers were ultimately lodged with the Royal Greenwich Observatory and evacuated to Herstmonceux Castle during World War II . After the war , they were stolen by Olin J . Eggen and only recovered in 1998 , hampering much historical research in the subject .