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From Caroline Island to Washington

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The Astronomer Jules Janssen

Part of the book series: Astrophysics and Space Science Library ((ASSL,volume 380))

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Abstract

“Tout effort, quelque obscur qu’il soit, devient grand quand il a un mobile élevé et généreux”.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    This was the first attempt to construct a canal across central America at the beginning of the 1880s. The work was interrupted in 1889 after the bankruptcy of the company directed by the Frenchman, Ferdinand de Lesseps, a bankruptcy that created an enormous financial scandal. The work was restarted in 1904 by an American company, and the canal was finally opened in 1914.

  2. 2.

    This refers in particular to the award for the most charitable and/or courageous act by a poor Frenchman.

  3. 3.

    It was, in fact, general relativity that explained the observed irregularities in the motion of Mercury.

  4. 4.

    In English in the text.

  5. 5.

    Bastille Day (the French national holiday)

  6. 6.

    The title of the Conference was actually: “International Conference for the purpose of fixing a prime meridian and a universal day”.

  7. 7.

    This meeting was less diplomatic in character than the Washington Conference, whose resolutions would actually represent a political act.

  8. 8.

    As the French delegates did, although feebly, the year before at Rome.

  9. 9.

    Captain Sir F.J.O. Evans, Royal Navy; Professor J.C. Adams, Director of the Cambridge Observatory; Lieutenant-General Strachey, Member of the Council of India; and Sandford Fleming, representing the Dominion of Canada.

  10. 10.

    Rear-Admiral C.R.P. Rodgers, U.S. Navy; Lewis M. Rutherfurd; W.F. Allen, Secretary, Railway Time Convention; Commander W.T. Sampson, U.S. Navy; Professor Cleveland Abbe, U.S. Signal Office.

  11. 11.

    This vote is not mentioned in Greenwich time: and the discovery of the longitude by Derek Howse, who gives only the main adopted resolutions (with a numbering of his own), in his analysis of voting country by country (Table II, pp. 146–7).

  12. 12.

    It is easy to see that this was not at all about the adoption of the metric system, as is very often stated to be the case.

  13. 13.

    Until then the astronomical day started at midday, whereas the civil day started at midnight, 12 hours earlier.

References

  1. Letter from Jules to Henriette Janssen, 30 March 1883, BIF Ms 4133–261.

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  2. Letter from Jules to Henriette Janssen, March 1883, BIF Ms 4133–255.

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  3. Letter from Camille Flammarion to Jules Janssen, 27 April 1882, BIF Ms 4135–165.

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  4. Herman, Jan K. and Corbin, Brenda G., “Trouvelot: From Moths to Mars”, Sky & Telescope, Dec. 1986, 566–8.

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  5. Trouvelot, E.L., The Trouvelot astronomical drawings, with Manual, New York, Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1882.

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  6. Letter from Jules to Henriette Janssen, March 1883, BIF Ms 4133–255.

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  7. Letter from Jules to Henriette Janssen, 19 March 1883, BIF Ms 4133–256.

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  8. Draft of a letter from Jules to Henriette Janssen, 21 March 1883, BIF Ms 4133–258.

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  9. Letter from Jules to Henriette Janssen, 28 March 1883, BIF Ms 4133–257.

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  10. Ibid.

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  11. Letter from Jules to Henriette Janssen, 19 April 1883, BIF Ms 4133–263.

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  12. Letter from Jules to Henriette Janssen, 09 May 1883, BIF Ms 4133–265.

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  13. Janssen, Jules, “Mission en Océanie pour l’observation de l’éclipse totale de Soleil du 6 Mai 1883”, Annuaire du BdL pour l’an 1884, 847–77.

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  14. Ibid.

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  15. Letter from Jules to Henriette Janssen, 09 May 1883, BIF Ms 4133–265.

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  16. Letter from Jules to Henriette Janssen, 21 July 1883, BIF Ms 4133–270.

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  17. Janssen, Jules, “Mission en Océanie pour l’observation de l’éclipse totale de Soleil du 6 Mai 1883”, Annuaire du BdL pour l’an 1884, 847–77.

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  18. Ibid.

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  19. Letter from Jules to Henriette Janssen, 16 September 1883, BIF Ms 4133–271.

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  20. Letter from Jules to Henriette Janssen, 18 September 1883, BIF Ms 4133–272.

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  21. Ibid.

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  22. Letter from Jules to Henriette Janssen, 09 September 1884, BIF Ms 4133–273.

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  23. Letter from Jules to Henriette Janssen, 26 September 1884, BIF Ms 4133–276.

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  24. Letter from Jules to Henriette Janssen, 27 September 1884, BIF Ms 4133–277.

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  25. Ibid.

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  26. Septième Conférence géodésique internationale tenue à Rome en octobre 1883, Rapport et résolutions, Rome, Imprimerie royale, 1883.

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  27. Janssen, Jules, “Rapport sur le congrès de Washington et sur les propositions qui y ont été adoptées, touchant le premier méridien, l’heure universelle et l’extension du système décimal à la mesure des angles et à celle du temps”, CRAS, 100 (09 March 1885), 706–26.

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  28. Gapaillard, Jacques, Une histoire de l’heure en France, Paris, Vuibert, (in press, 2011)

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  29. Letter from Jules to Henriette Janssen, 13 October 1884, BIF Ms 4133–278.

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  30. Ibid.

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  31. Conférence internationale tenue à Washington pour l’adoption d’un premier méridien unique et d’une heure universelle, octobre 1884, Procès-verbaux des séances, Washington, Gibson Bros., 1884. [The English-language version is: International Conference held at Washington for the Purpose of Fixing a Prime Meridian and a Universal Day; October 1884; Protocols of the Proceedings; Washington, D.C., Gibson Bros, Printers and Bookbinders, 1884], p. 84–85.

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  32. Janssen, Jules, “Rapport sur le congrès de Washington et sur les propositions qui y ont été adoptées, touchant le premier méridien, l’heure universelle et l’extension du système décimal à la mesure des angles et à celle du temps”, CRAS, 100 (09 March 1885), 706–26.

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  33. International Conference held at Washington for the Purpose of Fixing a Prime Meridian and a Universal Day; October 1884; Protocols of the Proceedings; Washington, D.C., Gibson Bros, Printers and Bookbinders, 1884.

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  34. Letter from Jules to Henriette Janssen, 13 October 1884, BIF Ms 4133–278.

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  35. Letter from Jules to Henriette Janssen, 27 October 1884, BIF Ms 4133–279.

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  36. Ibid.

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  37. Janssen, Jules, “Rapport sur le congrès de Washington et sur les propositions qui y ont été adoptées, touchant le premier méridien, l’heure universelle et l’extension du système décimal à la mesure des angles et à celle du temps”, CRAS, 100 (09 March 1885), 706–26.

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  1. Observatoire de Paris, Paris, France

    Françoise Launay

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Launay, F. (2012). From Caroline Island to Washington. In: The Astronomer Jules Janssen. Astrophysics and Space Science Library, vol 380. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-0697-6_10

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-0697-6_10

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