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4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Solid Workmanlike Effort, December 29, 2006
This is a book almost without flaws, a solid workmanlike effort, but somehow I was slightly disappointed. I knew who Simon Newcomb was and was aware of his contributions to the development of timescales and positional astronomy.
I read the Carters' previous book, "Latitude" and was completely smitten. This book lacks the compelling narrative style of that volume. Maybe I had set my hopes too high.
The book is a biography, very much in the traditional sense. However, rather than a chronological catalog of events, the chapters are a series of articles about major milestones in the life of Simon Newcomb, arranged in chronological order. There is, of course, some overlap but I found this approach both clever and very satisfying.
The authors are manifestly technically literate but the technical content is very, very low. Tastes vary, but I personally would have liked more.
The bad bits:
I would have enjoyed the book infinitely (ok, a lot) more if there were illustrations and photographs! Not one. Not even a photograph of the subject. [...] Just a B&W reproduction of a death notice, listing Newcomb's honors and associations, hardly different than plain text.
The layout is unfortunate. In several places long citations are inserted, enclosed by only a single pair of quotation marks. At least begin each paragraph of a citation with quotes, ok? I would have preferred "blockquote" style so I could easily tell where a citation began and ended without hunting for a teeny pair of goose tracks.
The authors also indulge in the habit of attributing thoughts, motives and actions to people that they could not possibly have known. (E.g., how, on opening a letter from Chandler alone in his study, Newcomb shifted his weight in his seat to find a comfortable spot.) The "third person omniscient" style is probably ok in a book aimed at high school students, but not in a serious biography. Anyway, it put me off.
Bottom line: Good read, could have been a lot better. A longer book might have been better, it transcends concise and borders on laconic in places. I definitely will buy the Carters' next book. You "should buy" this one.
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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Simon Newcomb, November 18, 2006
Simon Newcomb, by Bill Carter and Merri Sue Carter is the biography of a scientist who was born in 1835 and died in 1909. Simon Newcomb is a man of historical significance and the subject of his life and his achievements is a story that needed to be told. The Carters do a masterful job in doing so. As distinguished members in the same core scientific community as Newcomb, they are able to measure Newcomb's scientific achievements, present it well and give credit where credit is due. In Newcomb's later years, he spent "much time and energy writing popularized scientific articles, explaining complex concepts and results in terms that the public could understand and appreciate". Close to a century after his passing, the Carters give him their time and energy in honoring his life and scientific contributions.
"America's Unofficial Astronomer Royal", from the title page we see this statement and it is something worthy of exploration. I believe that in Newcomb's mind he was and through his actions you can see that it was something that he dearly wanted. Although openly taking on "the mantel of `Unofficial Astronomer Royal'", there was one thing that eluded him -the fact that he was never able to hold the title "Superintendent, U.S. Naval Observatory". The Carters depict his character so vividly that you can imagine his extreme angst never having captured this title, especially, since the opportunity was almost his for the taking until the assassination of his good friend, President Garfield.
In attempting to know why Newcomb behaved the way he did and accomplished the things that he accomplished, it is important to know the intricate details of his life. The Carters give us ample insight as to how and why he achieved so much. His youth, his father, and his relationships with men of science were constant catalysts for his desire to do more. In regards to his father, we see that he was a man that was immensely jealous of his son and belittled much of his activities and works. For Simon, he responded to this by encapsulating himself in work. Which is not too unusual, since the arguably, second most important American astronomer of this time, Seth Carlo Chandler, was incited by an intellectual rebellion against his father's wishes as well. What also fueled Newcomb to become "America's Unofficial Astronomer Royal" must have been his relationship with Airy. In this book, Airy is described as an unapproachable and uncompromising man. I believe that Newcomb was in some way in awe of Airy. The fact that he was not shunned away from Airy like others, leads me to believe that Newcomb was not openly critical of Airy and was most likely intimidated by the "Official Astronomer Royal".
What I think is most powerful in this book is its ability to show how Simon Newcomb came to be. All things considered, I believe he was a man with a strong vision. As "America's Unofficial Astronomer", he was able to execute this role to perfection. He was fully aware of what his science needed and he knew the best route to get there. A shinning example of this was his goal in measuring the distance of the earth to the sun. In doing so, he believed that a massive employment of American observers and instruments to view the transit of Venus would not be advisable for the determination of the astronomical unit. Instead he championed the idea that improving the estimate of the velocity of light would lead them to the best measure. So, learning that Albert Michelson was involved in improving upon this measure with his velocity of light experiments, Newcomb offered his assistance and I infer, his federal monetary allotment as well. As a result of their work, they were able to determine the distance from the earth to the sun about "100 times more accurately than the value obtained from the transit of Venus observations".
This book tells the story of Simon Newcomb, describes the scientific principles and techniques that were introduced, gives a distinct look at the relationships between the top scientists of the day, and manages to intertwine a political history in the process. Simon Newcomb was a person that was able to assess any given situation and make improvements to many different types of science - a bonafide polymath. He even went so far as to apply his scientific knowledge to flight, and in doing so may have come up with the idea of the blimp or "Zeppelins" as they were called at that time. I believe that Newcomb thought that there was truly nothing beyond his grasp and that his imagination and skill served science well. Although I believe that his contributions to science are vast and great, I also see him as a larger than life dynamo of his day, which is something that may be only realized by reading Simon Newcomb, by Bill Carter and Merri Sue Carter. I recommend this book to all readers.
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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Simon Newcomb: Astronomer Extraordinaire, February 5, 2006
Simon Newcomb is not well known to the general population but he should be. He was one of the most influential astronomers of the Nineteenth Century both in the US and Europe. This absorbing account of his life takes us from his early youth under an ineffective father through an indentured medical apprenticeship to his emergence as a world famous scientist. The authors, Bill and Merri Sue Carter, cover both his triumphs and his travails, and show the whole man, as Ben Franklin might have said, "warts and all."
In his youth Simon excelled in mathematics but was largely self-taught until he escaped his servitude in Canada and immigrated to the US, where he graduated from Harvard summa cum laude in two years, even while working at the Nautical Almanac Office. While still a resident graduate student at Harvard, Simon traveled to the wilds of Manitoba west of Lake Winnipeg to observe a total solar eclipse. In the decades that followed, he made many fundamental contributions to astronomy, including overseeing the construction of the workd's largest refractor telescope, which was used by a colleague at the U.S. Naval Observatory to discover the moons of Mars. He measured the speed of light wih Michelson, and used the result to determine the astronomical unit far more accurately than those values derived from the observations of the transits of Venus in 1874 and 1882. Later he refined the orbital elements of our Moon, and made his mark on the international scene at the Paris Conference in May 1896 where his set of solar system constants was accepted by the participants (Germany, France, England and the United states). Newcomb had a long, and sometimes antagonistic relationship with Seth Carlo Chandler, Jr., who was credited with discovering the true complexity of the variation of latitude (see "Latitude, How American Astronomers Solved the Mystery of Variaton," by the same authors). It was Newcomb who reconciled the apparent conflict between the theory and the observed variation of latitude.
Newcomb's interests stretched beyond astronomy. When his friend President James Garfield lay dying in the heat of a Washington summer, he not only devised a method to cool the room even while the doors and windows remained open, but also arranged for Alexander Graham Bell to use his induction balance to remotely probe the location of the assassin's bullet lodged in the President's body.
A short review such as this cannot do justice to the richness of this biography. It is a facinating story, and must be read by the general public as well as by scientists the world over.
John R. Herman, retired geophysicist, author of "The Metamorphosis of a Geophysicist".
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