John Couch Adams [5] (obsolete: John Kuh Adams , John Cook Adams , June 5, 1819 , Cornwall , England - January 21, 1892 , Cambridge , England ) - British mathematician and an astronomer , a foreign corresponding member of the Petersburg Academy of Sciences , a member of the Royal Society of London [6] .
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| Awards and prizes | member of the Royal Society of London Copley Medal ( 1848 ) [d] [d] |
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Biography
Born in Lanist, near Lanstan, in Cornwall . As a child, he showed exceptional mathematical abilities for his age and in 1831 his parents sent him to study at a private school in Devonport , known for its high level of teaching [7] . He completed a university course in Cambridge , in 1841 he held a master's exam. In January 1843, at the annual mathematical competition in Cambridge, Adams became the first winner, ahead of the second winner following him by 2000 points: he "earned" 4000 points, and the second - 2000. This is an unprecedented case in such competitions. As the first winner of the competition, Adams becomes a member of the scientific council of St. John's College [7] .
In July 1841, Adams wrote in his diary:
He made a decision ... to proceed as soon as possible after obtaining a degree to study irregularities in the movement of Uranus , which have not yet been explained. My goal is to establish whether they can be attributed to the action of a planet not yet discovered beyond Uranus, to approximately determine the elements of its orbit, etc., which will probably lead to the discovery of the planet.
- Cit. By: [7]
His most famous achievement was the prediction of the existence and position in Neptune's space with the help of mathematics alone (a planet discovered “at the tip of a pen”). Calculations were performed to explain deviations in the orbit of Uranus from the laws of Kepler and Newton .
In total, from the summer of 1843 until September 1845 , Adams received 6 decisions, of which each subsequent considered more accurate than the previous one. In September 1845, Adams transferred the elements of the orbit of an unknown planet he calculated to Challis , who transferred it to the royal astronomer Airy . It turned out that Challis observed this planet more than once in August, without attaching any importance to it, but he and Airy drew attention to the works of Adams at a time when, irrespective of Adams, Urben Leverrier did the same calculations. In 1846, Johann Halle, according to instructions received from Le Verrier, discovered Neptune. On the primacy of the discovery between the English and French astronomers, a dispute arose, decided in favor of Le Verrier.
Adams, having spent many years as a teacher at Cambridge University, was made professor of astronomy in 1858. Most of his writings are in notes of the Astronomical and Royal Societies in London. The work on disturbances in the movement of Uranus in 1847 was published in a separate manuscript; in 1851, published in the Nautical Almanach under the title The observed irregularities in the motion of Uranus.
He was president of the Royal Astronomical Society . For many years, Adams dealt with the issues of numerical integration of differential equations [7] , in his honor he named the “ Adams method ” developed by him in the theory of differential equations [8] . In honor of John Adams and his two namesake astronomers named a crater on the moon.
The University of Cambridge has established and awarded the Adams Prize .
Personal life
In 1863, Adams married Miss Elise Bruce (1827-1919) from Dublin, who survived him for 27 years and was buried next to him [9] . Adams fortune at the end of his life was 32,434 pounds (2.6 million pounds in 2003 prices [10] ).
See also
- Adams Method
- Discovery of Neptune
Notes
- ↑ 1 2 BNF identifier : Open Data Platform 2011.
- ↑ 1 2 Archive for the history of mathematics MacTyutor
- ↑ Find a Grave - 1995. - ed. size: 165000000
- ↑ SNAC - 2010.
- ↑ The Cornish name Couch is pronounced [ku: h].
- ↑ Mathematical Encyclopedic Dictionary. // M. , "Soviet Encyclopedia", 1988.
- ↑ 1 2 3 4 Grebenikov E.A. , Ryabov Yu.A. Search and discovery of planets . - 2nd ed., Revised and add. - M .: Nauka, 1984. - 224 p. - (The main edition of the physical and mathematical literature). - 100,000 copies. Archived March 4, 2016. Archived March 4, 2016 on Wayback Machine
- ↑ See, for example: N. Piskunov. A difference method for the approximate solution of differential equations based on the application of the Taylor formula. Adams method // Differential and integral calculus: Textbook. for technical colleges. In 2 volumes T. II . - The publication is stereotyped. - M .: Integral-Press, 2001 .-- S. 123-129. - 544 p. - 10,000 copies. - ISBN 5-89602-013-9 .
- ↑ Adams, John Couch. Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
- ↑ O'Donoghue, J. Consumer Price Inflation since 1750 (neopr.) // Economic Trends. - 2004 .-- March ( v. 604 ). - S. 38–46 .
Literature
- Grebenikov E.A. , Ryabov Yu.A. Searches and discoveries of planets . - 2nd ed., Revised and add. - M .: Nauka, 1984. - 224 p. - (The main edition of the physical and mathematical literature). - 100,000 copies. Archived March 4, 2016. Archived March 4, 2016 on Wayback Machine
- Kolchinsky I.G., Korsun A.A., Rodriguez M.G. Astronomers: A Biographical Reference. - 2nd ed., Revised. and additional .. - Kiev: Naukova Dumka, 1986. - 512 p.
Links
- Adams, John Kuch on the official website of the RAS
- Adams, John Kuh // Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary : 86 volumes (82 volumes and 4 additional). - SPb. , 1890-1907.