Bence Jones, Life and Letters of Faraday.
John Tyndall, Faraday as a Discoverer.
E. v. Meyer, History of Chemistry.
S. P. Thompson, Michael Faraday; his Life and Work.
Sir Edward Thorpe, Humphry Davy, Poet and Philosopher.
[CHAPTER XIV]
SCIENTIFIC PREDICTION—THE DISCOVERY OF NEPTUNE
Under this heading we have to consider a single illustration—the prediction, and the discovery, in 1846, of the planet Neptune. This event roused great enthusiasm among scientists as well as in the popular mind, afforded proof of the reliability of the Newtonian hypothesis, and demonstrated the precision to which the calculation of celestial motions had attained. Scientific law appeared not merely as a formulation and explanation of observed phenomena but as a means for the discovery of new truths. "Would it not be admirable," wrote Valz to Arago in 1835, "to arrive thus at a knowledge of the existence of a body which cannot be perceived?"