A Meeting in London
Four days earlier in London a remarkable meeting had been held in the rooms of the Royal Astronomical Society. The meeting had been called, not by the Royal Astronomical Society itself, but by the British Astronomical Association, an association essentially of amateur astronomers.
Chris Kingsley, Professor of Astronomy in the University of Cambridge, travelled by train in the early afternoon to London for the meeting. It was unusual for him, the most theoretical of theoreticians, to be attending a meeting of amateur observers. But there had been rumours of unaccounted discrepancies in the positions of the planets Jupiter and Saturn. Kingsley didn’t believe it, but he felt that scepticism should rest on solid ground, so he ought to hear what the chaps had to say about it.
When he arrived at Burlington House in time for the four o’clock tea, he was surprised to see that quite a number of other professionals had already arrived, including the Astronomer Royal. “Never heard of anything like this before at the B.A.A. The rumours must have been put around by some new publicity agent,” he thought to himself.
When Kingsley went in to the meeting room some half hour later he saw a vacant place on the front row by the Astronomer Royal. No sooner had he sat down than a Dr Oldroyd who was in the chair began the meeting in the following terms:
“Ladies and gentlemen, we meet here today to discuss some new and exciting results. But before I call on the first speaker I would like to say how pleased we are to see so many distinguished visitors. I am confident they will find that the time they have consented to spend with us will not have been wasted, and I feel that the important role of the amateur in astronomy will be demonstrated yet once again.”
At this Kingsley grinned inwardly to himself, and several of the other professionals squirmed in their seats. Dr Oldroyd went on:
“I have great pleasure in asking Mr George Green to address us.”
Mr George Green jumped up from his seat half-way down the room. He then bustled forward to the rostrum, clutching a large pile of papers in his right hand.
For the first ten minutes Kingsley listened with polite attention as Mr Green showed slides of his private telescopic equipment. But when the ten minutes lengthened to a quarter of an hour he began to fidget, and for the next half hour he lived in torment, first crossing his legs one way, then the other, then squirming round every minute or so to look at the clock on the wall. It was all in vain, for Mr George Green went right ahead with the bit firmly between his teeth. The Astronomer Royal kept glancing at Kingsley, a quiet smile on his face. The other professionals hugged themselves with delight. Their eyes never left Kingsley. They were calculating when the outburst would come.
The outburst never came, for Mr Green suddenly seemed to remember the purpose of his talk. Quitting the description of his beloved equipment, he began to throw off his results, rather like a dog shaking itself after a bath. He had observed Jupiter and Saturn, measuring their positions with care, and he had found discrepancies from the Nautical Almanac. Running to the blackboard he wrote down the following figures, and then sat down:
Jupiter+1 minute 29 seconds–49 seconds Saturn+42 seconds–17 seconds
Kingsley never heard the loud applause offered to Mr Green as a reward for his address, for Kingsley was choking with rage. He had come up to the meeting expecting to be told of discrepancies amounting to no more than a few tenths of a second at most. These he could have attributed to inaccurate, incompetent measurement. Or there might have been a subtle mistake of a statistical nature. But the figures that Mr Green had written up on the board were preposterous, fantastic, so large that a blind man could have seen them, so large that Mr George Green must have made some quite outrageous blunder.
It must not be thought that Kingsley was an intellectual snob, that he objected to an amateur on principle. Less than two years previously he had listened in the very same room to a paper presented by an entirely unknown author. Kingsley had immediately perceived the quality and competence of the work and was the first person to give public praise to it. Incompetence was Kingsley’s
On this occasion he was a seething cauldron of wrath. So many ideas flashed through his head that he was unable to decide on any one particular comment, it seemed such a pity to waste the others. Before he could reach a decision, Dr Oldroyd sprang a surprise:
“I have great pleasure,” said he, “in calling on the next speaker, the Astronomer Royal.”
It had been the Astronomer Royal’s first intention to speak shortly and to the point. Now he was unable to resist the temptation to expatiate at length, just for the pleasure of watching Kingsley’s face. Nothing could have been calculated to torment Kingsley more than a repetition of Mr George Green’s performance, and this is just what the Astronomer Royal produced. He first showed slides of the equipment at the Royal Observatory, slides of observers operating the equipment, slides of the equipment taken to pieces; and he then went on to explain the detailed operation of the equipment in terms that might have been chosen for the benefit of a backward child. But all this he did in measured confident tones, unlike the rather hesitant manner of Mr Green. After some thirty-five minutes of this he began to feel that Kingsley might be in real medical danger, so he decided to cut the cackle.
“Our results in broad outline confirm what Mr Green has already told you. Jupiter and Saturn are out of position and to amounts that are of the general order given by Mr Green. There are some small discrepancies between his results and ours but the main features are the same.
“At the Royal Observatory we have also observed that the planets Uranus and Neptune are out of their positions, not it is true to the same extent as Jupiter and Saturn, but nevertheless in very appreciable amounts.
“Finally I may add that I have received a letter from Grottwald in Heidelberg, in which he says that the Heidelberg Observatory has obtained results that accord closely with those of the Royal Observatory.”
Whereon the Astronomer Royal returned to his seat. Dr Oldroyd immediately addressed the meeting:
“Gentlemen, you have heard presented to you this afternoon results that I venture to suggest are of the very first importance. Today’s meeting may well become a landmark in the history of astronomy. It is not my wish to take up any more of your time as I expect you will have much to say. In particular I expect our theoreticians will have much to say. I should like to begin the discussion by asking Professor Kingsley whether he has any comment he would like to make.”
“Not while the law of slander is still operative,” whispered one professional to another.
“Mr Chairman,” began Kingsley, “while the two previous speakers were addressing us I had ample opportunity to perform a fairly lengthy calculation.”
The two professionals grinned at each other, the Astronomer Royal grinned to himself.
“The conclusion I have arrived at may be of interest to the meeting. I find that if the results that have been presented to us this afternoon are correct, I say if they are correct, then a hitherto unknown body must exist in the vicinity of the solar system. And the mass of this unknown body must be comparable with or even greater than the mass of Jupiter itself. While it must be granted implausible to suppose that the results given to us arise from mere observational errors, I say mere observational errors, it may also be thought implausible that a body of such large mass existing within the solar system, or on the periphery of the solar system, could so far have remained undetected.”
Kingsley sat down. The professionals who understood the general trend of his argument, and what lay under it, felt that he had made his point.
Kingsley glowered at the railwayman who asked to see his ticket as he boarded the 8.56 p.m. train from Liverpool Street to Cambridge. The man fell back a pace or two, as well he might, for Kingsley’s rage had not been assuaged by the meal he had just eaten, a meal consisting of poor food badly cooked, condescendingly served in pretentious but slovenly conditions. Only its price had been ample. Kingsley stamped through the train looking for a compartment where he could bite the carpet in solitary splendour. Moving quickly through a first-class carriage he caught a glimpse of the back of a head that he thought he recognized. Slipping into the compartment, he dropped down by the Astronomer Royal.
“First-class, nice and comfortable. Nothing like working for the government, eh?”
