Address of Professor Benjamin Peirce, President of the American Association for the Year 1853, on Retiring From the Duties of President (Classic Reprint) - Softcover

Excerpt from Address of Professor Benjamin Peirce, President of the American Association for the Year 1853, on Retiring From the Duties of President

And pole-star must not he suffered to impose upon the trusting world, and guide it in a delusive chase after an ignis fatuus. Geometry! To the rescue! Geometry is at her post, faith ful among the faithless. The pen is at work, the midnight oil consumed, the magic circles drawn by the wise men of the East, and the wizard logarithm summoned from the North. The tables are turned. The defect of motion is transformed into the discovery of a new law. It becomes the proof of the atmosphere to bend the ray from its course as it shoots down, laden with the image of Arcturus and the sweet influences of the Pleiades; it becomes the proof of the moving light, of the unseen planet, and of the invisible star, and' hence a. New proof of the precision of the measure. Honor to Bradley, to Bessel, to Adams, and to Leverrier! The stars are not false. Question them as you may, they give the same evi dence, and do not contradict each other's testimony. They tell us that ours is not the central sun, and that we are mov ing in the procession of the stars; they tell us that we move among the others, towards the constellation of Hercules, so that, while we grow in wisdom, we approach the strong man's home. They tell us that we are moving at such a rate, that the distance from star to star is but just a good geological day's journey; and hereby they confirm the story which is written upon the crust of our globe, and prove that the earth and the skies have been measured out with the same unit of measure.

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