Simon Newcomb
Simon Newcomb
Simon Newcombwas a Canadian-American astronomer, applied mathematician and autodidactic polymath, who was Professor of Mathematics in the U.S. Navy and at Johns Hopkins...
NationalityCanadian
ProfessionMathematician
Date of Birth12 March 1835
CountryCanada
morning night two
The result was that, if it happened to clear off after a cloudy evening, I frequently arose from my bed at any hour of the night or morning and walked two miles to the observatory to make some observation included in the programme.
educational cutting men
If my impressions are correct, our educational planing mill cuts down all the knots of genius, and reduces the best of the men who go through it to much the same standard.
war taken rude
The time was not yet ripe for the growth of mathematical science among us, and any development that might have taken place in that direction was rudely stopped by the civil war.
party swag details
The reports of the eclipse parties not only described the scientific observations in great detail, but also the travels and experiences, and were sometimes marked by a piquancy not common in official documents.
teaching fifteen twenties
The beginning of 1856 found me teaching in the family of a planter named Bryan, residing in Prince George County, Md., some fifteen or twenty miles from Washington.
airplane space machines
Flight by machines heavier than air is unpractical and insignificant, if not utterly impossible.
wall light world
I had not yet gotten into the world of light. But I felt as one who, standing outside, could knock against the wall and hear an answering knock from within.
party eclipse-of-the-sun visible
Whenever a total eclipse of the sun was visible in an accessible region parties were sent out to observe it.
men class able
Aerial flight is one of that class of problems with which man will never be able to cope.
real sensual navy
As the existence of a corps of professors of mathematics is peculiar to our navy, as well as an apparent, perhaps a real, anomaly, some account of it may be of interest.
age district lived mile passed school summer town
In the summer of 1851, when I had passed the age of sixteen, we lived in a little school district a mile or two from the town of Yarmouth, N. S.
men discovery flight
Construction of an aerial vehicle which can carry even a single man . . . requires the discovery of some new metal or force. Even with such a discovery, we could not expect one to do more than carry its owner.
america eclipse-of-the-sun british
In 1860 a total eclipse of the sun was visible in British America.
thinking might revolution
So far as the economic condition of society and the general mode of living and thinking were concerned, I might claim to have lived in the time of the American Revolution.