ERRORS IN LA PLACE.
We come now to the last volume, in printing the thousandth page of which he died. It was the most difficult to him of the whole, and probably will raise him higher, in the estimation of the scientific world, than either of the others. In the first place, I would remark, that either from the difficulty of the subject, or from the inattention of La Place, an unusual number of errors was discovered. No less than twenty-four errors or omissions are pointed out. Many of these seem insignificant, but often, as may be supposed, they materially affect the calculation. Most of them refer to the derangements and the motions of Jupiter’s satellites—a subject which occupies three hundred and fourteen pages of the volume. The keenness of Dr. Bowditch’s criticism is again perceived while treating upon a subject in dispute between Plana and La Place. Dr. Bowditch points out one mistake, and Poisson another, whereby Plana’s views are proved to coincide entirely with La Place’s, instead of being opposed to them.
NOTE ON HALLEY’S COMET.
I find a note upon Halley’s comet, to which I alluded as presenting a grand spectacle in our western sky a few years since, and I cannot forbear mentioning the coincidence. Dr. Bowditch, when making his notes upon the subject of the motions and revolutions of comets, speaks of Halley’s comet, and mentions all that is known about it, and its probable appearance. This note was prepared some time before it was printed. It terminates thus: “Since writing the preceding part of this note the comet has again appeared, and, at the time of printing this page, is visible in the heavens, not far distant from the place corresponding to the elements of Mr. Pontecoulant.”
CAPILLARY ATTRACTION.
LA PLACE AND POISSON.
The work, so far as Dr. Bowditch is concerned, finishes with the most curious and difficult subject of capillary attraction, or that power whereby a liquid rises in narrow tubes beyond the level of the fluid outside, as we see familiarly in sponges, and cloths, and in very minute glass tubes. You may think this subject of little moment; yet La Place thought it more curious than almost any other, and he earnestly calls the attention of mathematicians to it. It is a subject so difficult of investigation, that it requires the keenest efforts of the best intellects to rightly understand it. After La Place’s investigations were published, Gauss considered the subject, and arrived at results similar to those presented by La Place. But in 1831, Poisson, the first mathematician then living, of whom we have already spoken, put forth a work in which he announced many new views. This he thought himself justified in doing, after taking into consideration certain particulars which La Place had neglected. Dr. Bowditch received the work while engaged in printing this volume. He ceased printing, and devoted six months or more to a thorough perusal of the new French work. The result was, that he proved that without an exception, unless where an evident error was made by La Place, the principles of this mathematician, when fairly carried out, would produce all the results which Poisson had given as new in his work. By this labor Dr. Bowditch proved that Poisson’s so-called new theory of capillary attraction was founded in error. This is decidedly the most important work of the translator. It places him much higher than before in the scale of mathematical rank.
I would willingly give a further analysis, but I forbear, because it would not be interesting to you. It was in correcting this, his noblest task, in the full strength of his intellect, that he was destined to die.