Urbain Jean Joseph Le Verrier (11 March 1811 – 23 September 1877) was a French mathematician who specialized in celestial mechanics and is best known for his part in the discovery of Neptune.
Le Verrier was born in Saint-Lô, France, and studied at the Ecole Polytechnique. Following a brief period studying chemistry under Gay-Lussac, Le Verrier switched to astronomy, particularly celestial mechanics. He accepted a job at the Paris Observatory, whe...
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Urbain Jean Joseph Le Verrier (11 March 1811 – 23 September 1877) was a French mathematician who specialized in celestial mechanics and is best known for his part in the discovery of Neptune.
Le Verrier was born in Saint-Lô, France, and studied at the Ecole Polytechnique. Following a brief period studying chemistry under Gay-Lussac, Le Verrier switched to astronomy, particularly celestial mechanics. He accepted a job at the Paris Observatory, where he spent most of his professional life, and eventually became that institution's Director. In 1855, he was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.
Le Verrier's most famous achievement is his prediction of the existence of the then unknown planet Neptune, using only mathematics and astronomical observations of the known planet Uranus. Encouraged by physicist Arago,, Director of the Paris Observatory, Le Verrier was intensely engaged for months in complex calculations to explain small but systematic discrepancies...
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