Percival Lowell
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| Asteroids discovered: 1 |
| Designator (name): 793 Arizona |
| Discovery Date: April 9, 1907 |
Percival Lowell (March 13, 1855 – November 12, 1916) was an author, mathematician, and esteemed astronomer who fueled speculation that there were canals on Mars, founded the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, and formed the beginning of the work and theories that led to the discovery of Pluto 14 years after his death.
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[edit] Biography
Percival Lowell, who was a descendant of the distinguished Boston Lowell family, was the brother of A. Lawrence, president of Harvard University, and Amy, a well-known Imagist poet and critic.
Percival graduated from Harvard University in 1876 with distinction in mathematics, and traveled extensively through the Far East before deciding to study Mars and astronomy as a full-time career. He was particularly interested in the supposed canals of Mars, as drawn by Giovanni Schiaparelli, who was director of the Milan Observatory and an esteemed Italian astronomer.
Lowell was also interested in the Orient, especially Korea and Japan. In the 1880s he traveled extensively in East Asia. Starting in August of 1883 he served as a foreign secretary and counsellor for a special Korean diplomatic mission to the United States. 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 Percival Lowell on the Orient include Noto (1891) and Occult Japan (1894); the latter from his third and final trip to the region. 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. Beginning in the winter of 1893-94 and for the last 22 years of his life -- astronomy, Lowell Observatory, and his and others' work at his observatory were the focal points of Percival Lowell's life.
[edit] Astronomy career
In 1894 he moved to Flagstaff, Arizona. At an altitude of over 7000 feet, and with few cloudy nights, it was an excellent site for astronomical observations. For the next fifteen years he studied Mars extensively, and made 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). He thereby instigated the long-held belief that Mars had once sustained intelligent life forms.
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 upheld the theory that the canals had been constructed for the purpose of 'husbanding' Mars's scanty water-supply.
Lowell's greatest contribution to planetary studies came during the last 8 years of his life, which he devoted to the search for Planet X, which was the designation for a planet beyond Neptune. The search continued for a number of years after his death at Flagstaff in 1916; the planet, named Pluto was discovered by Clyde Tombaugh in 1930. The symbol for the planet is a stylized "PL" (♇), chosen in part to honor Lowell.
It is interesting to note that predictions of a planet beyond Neptune were based on discrepancies between the predicted and observed positions of Neptune and Uranus, and the erroneous assumption that such discrepancies were caused by the gravitational influence of an unknown planet. In fact, the discrepancies were due to erroneous values for the masses of Neptune and Uranus; with modern precise values, the discrepancies disappear, and in any case it is now known that the mass of Pluto is far too small to exert so appreciable a gravitational influence as to disturb the orbits of other planets to a degree we can observe and measure.
[edit] External links
[edit] References
- Zahnel K. (2001). "Decline and Fall of the Martian Empire". Nature 412: 209-213. DOI:10.1038/35084148.
- Crossley R. (2000). "Percival Lowell and the history of Mars". Massachusetts Review 41: 297-318.
- Strauss D. (1994). "Lowell, Percival, Pickering, W.H. and the founding of the Lowell Observartory". Annals of Science 51 (1): 37-58. DOI:10.1080/00033799400200121.
- Trefil J. (1988). "Turn-of-the-Century American Astronomer Lowell, Percival". Smithsonian 18 (10): 34-.
- Meyer W. B. (1984). "Life on Mars is almost Certain + Lowell,Percival on Exobiology". American Heritage 35 (2): 38-43.
- Hetherington N. S. (1981). "Lowell, Percival - Professional Scientist or Interloper". Journal of the History of Ideas 42 (1): 159-161.
- Heffernan W. C. (1981). "Lowell, Percival and the Debate over Extraterrestrial Life". Journal of the History of Ideas 42 (3): 527-530.
- Webb G. E. (1980). "The Planet Mars and Science in Victorian America". Journal of American Culture 3 (4): 573. DOI:10.1111/j.1542-734X.1980.0304_573.x.
- Hoyt W. G., Wesley W. G. (1977). "Lowell and Mars". American Journal of Physics 45 (3): 316-317. DOI:10.1119/1.10630.
- Hofling C. K. (1964). "Percival Lowell and the Canals of Mars". British Jouornal of Medical Psychology 37 (1): 33-42.
