The First International Event and the First “New” Planet: Expanding the Globe and Confronting Infinity

Abstract

In 1714, Edmund Halley, renowned scientist and a competent navigator, urged the Royal Society to undertake an unprecedented action, not simply of scientific inquiry but of international scientific cooperation, to map the transits of Venus. During this transit, the planet Venus passes in front of the sun. If properly observed, measurements taken would allow scientists to calculate the distance of the planets and accurately assess the size of the solar system. Halley’s request to the Royal Society underscores the importance of this event. He claimed that, “the most noble [or lofty] problem of the universe [in nature] for humanity is to seek to gain knowledge of and apply observation toward the working out of the period of the transit.”¹ His insistence that mapping the transits of Venus did not constitute just one of the important scientific problems, but the single most important problem in all the universe, was not taken as hyperbole by colleagues. Halley was already advanced in age when he made the prediction of the coming transits of Venus and realized their potential for scientific advancement. He knew that he would not live to see the transits of 1761 and 1769, so he worked out the difficult calculations necessary to predict the best sites for observation and set them forth in a treatise published in the Philosophical Transactions in 1714 (“Methodus Singularis”).