Fi, Herve

He was an associate at the Paris Observatory , then professor of astronomy at the Polytechnic. He was elected a member of the French Academy of Sciences (in 1847), the National Italian Academy dei Linchei and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences .

On November 23, 1843, Fi discovered a periodic comet bearing his name . ^{[6] [7]} Fay is known primarily as the author of a huge number of brilliant and witty articles and notes (published mainly in the Comptes Rendus de l'Académie des sciences - reports of the Paris Academy of Sciences) in all branches of observational astronomy . The articles related to the question of the structure of the Sun and to the question of the origin of the universe were especially famous.

Fai sees vortices in the spots on the Sun that have arisen from the meeting of two neighboring layers of the photosphere with different speeds. The spots are completely similar to terrestrial tornadoes and hurricanes , in a smaller size - to whirlpools . We see the walls of the vortex funnel at a very sharp angle - the penumbra of the spot. However, a whirlwind draws colder dark clouds into itself from above, and they obscure the internal parts of the spot. The spot is thus filled with cold, downward-moving gases, which perfectly corresponds to spectral observations. The jet structure of the partial shade of some spots is also well explained; however, the spots do not at all reveal the general law of cyclone rotation, which is necessary according to Fay's hypothesis.

Hypothesis Faya - allows the eternal existence of " chaos " as a dark and cold nebula. Due to the begun compression caused by the attraction, the matter warmed up and began to glow weakly, quite like nebulae, by open photography. In various directions, chaos plow the "streams" of matter. In some places, due to the meeting of opposite flows, vortices are obtained - the ancestors of spiral nebulae, and after them various star systems.

The main type of these systems are close binary and multiple stars, where the masses are distributed fairly evenly, and the constituent stars rotate around a common center of gravity. To create a system like our solar system, extremely favorable conditions were required.

Fi rightly insists on the falsity of the view that every star is the center of motion of many planets. Planetary systems - a rare exception among the stellar worlds . Where there was no meeting of movements in chaos, not vortices formed, but slowly thickening clouds of small hot bodies (an example of this is in the constellations of Hercules and Centaurus ). In such a system, the resultant force of Newtonian mutual attraction of individual particles is always directed toward the center of the system and is directly proportional to the distance of the particle to it. The same law of forces prevailed in our system until the formation of the Sun. As a result of this, the rings formed inside the nebula give rise to planets with direct rotation around the axes. Meanwhile, a central condensation forms - the sun, whose mass finally far exceeds the mass of the remaining nebula, and the law of forces changes: the central attraction begins to prevail, inversely proportional to the square of the distance. All particles of a nebula move already according to Kepler’s laws . Planets that have not yet had time to form from the rings receive reverse rotation.

Thus, according to the hypothesis of Fay, the earth and internal planets are older than the Sun, and it is older than Uranus and Neptune. Despite the successful observation of a change in the law of forces, Fay's hypothesis explains some points (for example, ring formation) less satisfactorily than the Laplace-Roche hypothesis . Even its main goal - to explain the anomalous rotation of Uranus and Neptune - has not been fully achieved.

In 1935, the International Astronomical Union named Faye a crater on the visible side of the moon .

• "Leçons de cosmographie" (1852);
• Cours d'astronomie nautique (1880);
• Cours d'astronomie de l'école Polytechnique (1881);
• Sur l'origine du monde (1884);
• Sur les tempêtes (1887); "Nouvelle étude sur les tempêtes etc." (1897).

• 1843 - Knight of the Order of the Legion of Honor
• 1855 - Officer of the Legion of Honor
• 1870 - Commander of the Order of the Legion of Honor

• Kolchinsky I.G., Korsun A.A., Rodriguez M.G. Astronomers: A Biographical Reference. - 2nd ed., Revised. and additional .. - Kiev: Naukova Dumka, 1986. - 512 p.

• Serafimov V.V. Fay, Hervé-Auguste-Etienne-Alban // Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary : in 86 volumes (82 volumes and 4 additional). - SPb. , 1890-1907.