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= Percival_Lowell =
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Introduction
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Percival Lowell (; March 13, 1855 - November 12, 1916) was an American
businessman, author, mathematician, and astronomer who fueled
speculation that there were canals on Mars, and furthered theories of
a ninth planet within the Solar System. He founded the Lowell
Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, and formed the beginning of the
effort that led to the discovery of Pluto 14 years after his death.
Early life and work
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Percival Lowell was born on March 13, 1855, in Boston, Massachusetts,
the first son of Augustus Lowell and Katherine Bigelow Lowell. A
member of the Brahmin Lowell family, his siblings included the poet
Amy Lowell, the educator and legal scholar Abbott Lawrence Lowell, and
Elizabeth Lowell Putnam, an early activist for prenatal care. They
were the great-grandchildren of John Lowell and, on their mother's
side, the grandchildren of Abbott Lawrence.
Percival graduated from the Noble and Greenough School in 1872 and
Harvard College in 1876 with distinction in mathematics. While at
Harvard he joined Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity. At his college
graduation, he gave a speech, considered very advanced for its time,
on the nebular hypothesis. He was later awarded honorary degrees from
Amherst College and Clark University. After graduation he ran a cotton
mill for six years.
In the 1880s, Lowell traveled extensively in the Far East. In August
1883, he served as a foreign secretary and counselor for a special
Korean diplomatic mission to the United States. He then went to Korea
and lived there from December 1883 to March 1884. In 1884, he took the
earliest surviving photograph of a Korean monarch: King Gojong. 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 Lowell on the Orient include 'Noto: An Unexplored Corner of
Japan' (1891) and 'Occult Japan, or the Way of the Gods' (1894), the
latter from his third and final trip to the region. His time in Korea
inspired 'Chosön: The Land of the Morning Calm' (1886, Boston). 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. The writer Lafcadio Hearn
called it a "colossal, splendid, godlike book." At his death he left
with his assistant Wrexie Leonard an unpublished manuscript of a book
entitled 'Peaks and Plateaux in the Effect on Tree Life'.
After his death, Lowell's wife, Constance, contested his will granting
most of his estate to the observatory, halting its work for ten years.
Founding of the Lowell Observatory
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Lowell was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and
Sciences in 1892. He moved back to the United States in 1893. He
became determined to study Mars and astronomy as a full-time career
after reading Camille Flammarion's 'La planète Mars'. He was
particularly interested in the canals of Mars, as drawn by Italian
astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli, who was director of the Milan
Observatory. The Boston geologist George Russel Agassiz noted that
Lowell made the decision to begin his observations after hearing that
Schiaparelli began to experience failing eyesight. Beginning in the
winter of 1893-94, using his wealth and influence, Lowell dedicated
himself to the study of astronomy, founding the observatory which
bears his name. He chose Flagstaff, Arizona Territory, as the home of
his new observatory. At an altitude of over 2100 m, with few cloudy
nights, and far from city lights, Flagstaff was an excellent site for
astronomical observations. This marked the first time an observatory
had been deliberately located in a remote, elevated place for optimal
seeing which included enhanced image quality, sharpness and
steadiness. At his Flagstaff observatory Lowell favored the use of
smaller telescopes rather than larger ones, believing that they were
usually better for viewing fine planetary details. He was assisted in
setting up his observatory by William H. Pickering, another observer
of Mars who had noted the lines seen by Schiaparelli as well.
Lowell was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1897.
In 1904, Lowell received the Prix Jules Janssen, the highest award of
the Société astronomique de France, the French astronomical society.
For the last 23 years of his life, astronomy, Lowell Observatory, and
his and others' work at his observatory were the focal points of his
life.
World War I very much saddened Lowell, who was a dedicated pacifist.
This, along with some setbacks in his astronomical work (described
below), undermined his health and contributed to his death from a
stroke on November 12, 1916, aged 61. Lowell is buried on Mars Hill
near his observatory. Lowell claimed to "stick to the church" though
at least one current author describes him as an agnostic.
Canals of Mars
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For some fifteen years (1893 to about 1908) Lowell studied Mars
extensively, making 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). With these writings, Lowell more than anyone else popularized
the long-held belief that these markings showed that Mars 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
theorized that an advanced but desperate culture had built the canals
to tap Mars's polar ice caps, the last source of water on an
inexorably drying planet.
While this idea excited the public, the astronomical community was
skeptical. Many astronomers could not see these markings, and few
believed that they were as extensive as Lowell claimed. As a result,
Lowell and his observatory were largely ostracized. The consensus was
that some actual features did exist that would account for the
markings. In 1909, the sixty-inch Mount Wilson Observatory telescope
in Southern California allowed closer observation of the structures
Lowell had interpreted as canals, and revealed irregular geological
features, probably the result of natural erosion.
The existence of canal-like features was definitively disproved in the
1960s by NASA's Mariner missions. Mariner 4, 6 and 7, and the Mariner
9 orbiter (1972), did not capture images of canals but instead showed
a cratered Martian surface. Today, the surface markings taken to be
canals are regarded as an optical illusion. Psychologist Matthew J.
Sharps has argued that perception of the canals by Lowell and others
could have been the result of a combination of psychological factors,
including individual differences, Gestalt reconfiguration, and
sociocognitive factors.
Venus spokes
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Although Lowell was better known for his observations of Mars, he also
drew maps of the planet Venus. He began observing Venus in detail in
mid-1896 soon after the 61 cm Alvan Clark & Sons refracting
telescope was installed at his new Flagstaff, Arizona observatory.
Lowell observed the planet high in the daytime sky with the
telescope's lens stopped down to 3 inches in diameter to reduce the
effect of the turbulent daytime atmosphere. Lowell observed spoke-like
surface features including a central dark spot, contrary to what was
suspected then (and known now): that Venus has no surface features
visible from Earth, being covered in an atmosphere that is opaque. It
has been noted in a 2003 'Journal for the History of Astronomy' paper
and in an article published in 'Sky and Telescope' in July 2003 that
Lowell's stopping down of the telescope created such a small exit
pupil at the eyepiece, it may have become a giant ophthalmoscope
giving Lowell an image of the shadows of blood vessels cast on the
retina of his own eye.
Pluto
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Lowell's greatest contribution to planetary studies came during the
last decade of his life, which he devoted to the search for Planet X,
a hypothetical planet beyond Neptune. Lowell believed that the planets
Uranus and Neptune were displaced from their predicted positions by
the gravity of the unseen Planet X. Lowell started a search program in
1906. A team of human computers, led by Elizabeth Williams were
employed to calculate predicted regions for the proposed planet. The
program initially used a camera 5 in in aperture. The small field of
view of the 42 in reflecting telescope rendered the instrument
impractical for searching. From 1914 to 1916, a 9 in telescope on
loan from Sproul Observatory was used to search for Planet X. Lowell
did not discover Pluto but later Lowell Observatory (observatory code
690) would photograph Pluto in March and April 1915, without realizing
at the time that it was not a star.
In 1930, Clyde Tombaugh, working at the Lowell Observatory, discovered
Pluto near the location expected for Planet X. Partly in recognition
of Lowell's efforts, a stylized P-L monogram (♇) - the first two
letters of the new planet's name and also Lowell's initials - was
chosen as Pluto's astronomical symbol. However, it would subsequently
emerge that the Planet X theory was mistaken.
Pluto's mass could not be determined until 1978, when its satellite
Charon was discovered. This confirmed what had been increasingly
suspected: Pluto's gravitational influence on Uranus and Neptune is
negligible, not nearly enough to account for the discrepancies in
their orbits. In 2006, Pluto was reclassified as a dwarf planet by the
International Astronomical Union.
In addition, the discrepancies between the predicted and observed
positions of Uranus and Neptune were found 'not' to be caused by the
gravity of an unknown planet. Rather, they were due to an erroneous
value for the mass of Neptune. 'Voyager 2's' 1989 encounter with
Neptune yielded a more accurate value of its mass, and the
discrepancies disappeared when using this value.
Legacy
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Although Lowell's theories of the Martian canals, of surface features
on Venus, and of Planet X are now discredited, his practice of
building observatories at the position where they would best function
has been adopted as a principle. He also established the program and
setting which made the discovery of Pluto by Clyde Tombaugh possible.
Lowell has been described by other planetary scientists as "the most
influential popularizer of planetary science in America before Carl
Sagan".
While eventually disproved, Lowell's vision of the Martian canals as
an artifact of an ancient civilization making a desperate last effort
to survive, significantly influenced the development of science
fiction - starting with H. G. Wells's influential 1898 novel 'The War
of the Worlds', which made the further logical inference that
creatures from a dying planet might seek to invade Earth.
The image of the dying Mars and its ancient culture was retained, in
numerous versions and variations, in most science fiction works
depicting Mars in the first half of the twentieth century (see Mars in
fiction). Even when proven to be factually mistaken, the vision of
Mars derived from his theories remains enshrined in works that remain
in print and widely read as classics of science fiction.
Lowell's influence on science fiction remains strong. The canals
figure prominently in 'Red Planet' by Robert A. Heinlein (1949) and
'The Martian Chronicles' by Ray Bradbury (1950). The canals, and even
Lowell's mausoleum, heavily influence 'The Gods of Mars' (1918) by
Edgar Rice Burroughs as well as all other books in the Barsoom series.
Asteroid 1886 Lowell, discovered by Henry Giclas and Robert Schaldach
in 1949, as well as the crater Lowell on the Moon and the crater
Lowell on Mars, were named after him. The Lowell Regio on Pluto was
also named in his honor after its discovery by the 'New Horizons'
spacecraft in 2015.
Publications
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* 'The Soul of the Far East' (1888)
* 'Noto: An Unexplored Corner of Japan' (1891)
* 'Occult Japan, or the Way of the Gods' (1894)
* 'Collected Writings on Japan and Asia, including Letters to Amy
Lowell and Lafcadio Hearn', 5 vols., Tokyo: Edition Synapse.
*
* 'Mars' (1895)
* 'Mars and Its Canals' (1906)
* 'Mars As the Abode of Life' (1908)
* 'The Evolution of Worlds' (1910) (Full text at )
See also
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* Life on Mars
* Noto Peninsula
* Wrexie Leonard
External links
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*
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* [
http://www.lowell.edu/ Lowell Observatory]
*
[
http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/space/solarsystem/scientists/percival_lowell
BBC Science: Percival Lowell]
*
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Original Article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percival_Lowell
