Outside Looking Out--Space, 1899.

JF Ptak Science Books   Post 2751

Back in 1899 the astronomer Adolphe Duponchel¹ published a pamphlet on his very involved theories of the motion of the stars and star clusters and the shape of the universe.  I couldn't understand much of it, and when I thought about it more, I understood less, and probably less than that. I just couldn't decide what the idea was that he was trying to decipher and share, except to say that it was big. 

I wouldn't have thought about this pamphlet at all it if was not illustrated, because the illustrations in this short pamphlet are quite, well, inspired:

Duponchel was an accomplished and published civil engineer, canal and bridge builder, and hydrologist, who later in life veered into cosmogony, publishing on the effects of meteors and solar activities on the distribution of stars, the structure of the galaxy, and the motions of the planets. He met with no success from what I can determine, though he seems to have been very active in his starry pursuits through the 1890's, which was a prime period for French cosmogony. At the very least his ideas look entertaining, and as I said the imaging is quite lovely.

The truth of the matter is that I do not understand what he is talking about, though sometimes it seems as though he is talking about black holes and the motion of stars, except that he seems to be talking about "apex charbonnier" that are dark regions of space that could not be penetrated given the optics of the day. In general though he writes about what effects the "circulation" of the stars and star clusters.  Liberally translating he states that "no astronomical problem could offer more interest, and in the absence of a solution of a rigorously demonstrated accuracy can be I am happy to have arrived at finding a plausible and at least probable explanation of the simultaneity of all these coordinated movements in the same state of general equilibrium.

After this very pro forma and enormous statement, we arrive at the unknown stuff of his insight: 

"...points noirs isolate correspondent a des rayons visuels qui auraient traverse les mailles des deux reseaux sans rencontrer aucune etoile sur leur passage. Dans une seule direction, sur un espace sans doute assez restreint, mais parfaitement defini par son contour piriforme, cette illumination fait reellement defaut." ("Isolated black/dark spots correspond to visual rays that would have passed through the meshes of the two networks without encountering any stars in their path. In one direction, on a space which is doubtless rather small, but perfectly defined by its "piriforme" outline, this illumination is really lacking." The translation doesn't help the original too much, which left me understanding nothing.

Then, a few pages later, he writes: 

“...étudier ici tapissant en quelque sorte les parois du vide de l axe s y trouveraient distribuées en anneaux ou pour mieux dire en tores successifs dont chacun correspondrait à une strate particulière en forme discoi dale d étoiles extérieures. Ces to res successifs (figs 1+2) correspondant aux sphères magnétiques qui accompagnent les noyaux solides du Soleil et des planètes comprendraient chacun un certain nombre d étoiles circulant autour de l axe du tore avec un mouvement de rotation ac célérée en spirale comme celui des sphères magnétiques mais avec des vitesses alternativement de sens direct et de sens inverse de manière à assurer des vitesses concordantes de même direction aux points de tangence de deux tores consécutifs...” Or, “Firstly, to study here somehow lining the walls of the void of the axis would be distributed in rings or, to put it better, in successive tori, each of which corresponds to a particular stratum in the form of a disc of external stars. These successive rests (fig 1+2) corresponding to the magnetic spheres that accompany the solid nuclei of the Sun and planets would each include a number of stars circulating around the axis of the torus with a spiral arc rotational movement like that of the magnetic spheres but with alternately direct and reverse direction so as to ensure concordant speeds of the same direction at the points of tangency of two consecutive tori...”  Again, a not-good translation, but I really didn't have much of an idea of what he was writing about. 

The pictures are pretty.

If I'm missing something big, please let me know.

 

Notes:

1. Adolphe Duponchel,  "Circulation de notre groupe stellaire autour de l'axe charbonnier et mouvement parallactique de l'apex Solaire". Printed by the author, in Paris, 1899, from its appearance in Societe Astronomique de France, 1 March 1899.  9x6", 18pp.  WorldCat/OCLC reports 1 copy in the U.S. And either 1 or 3 copies at the Observatoire de Paris—otherwise there are no other copies of this work located. Provenance: Smithsonian Institution, and then the Library of Congress (small mostly-faded oval stamp for the SI on front cover, and the LC surplus stamp on the back cover).  

“Et les individus qui participent à cet engouement pour la quête des origines cosmiques n’épargnent ni leurs efforts ni leur temps pour développer, étayer, rendre publique, et faire reconnaître leurs théories. Ainsi, l’ingénieur des Ponts et Chaussées Adolphe Duponchel (1821-1903), après avoir déposé un pli cacheté à l’Académie des sciences le 27 mars 1893 contenant le sommaire d’une brochure exposant ses « Principes de cosmogonie générale », fait imprimer celle-ci à ses frais et l’envoie à l’assemblée savante. Il n’obtient aucune réponse mais persévère et soumet six Notes ou Mémoires à l’Académie sur ce sujet entre 1893 et 1894. Ne parvenant pas à obtenir le soutien académique qu’il recherche, Duponchel va finalement publier sa théorie dans des revues populaires de science, d’abord dans la revue Cosmos le 2 septembre 1893 puis, sous une forme augmentée, dans la Revue Scientifique les 28 juillet et 4 août 1894.”Volny Fages, “Dire l’origine scientifique des astres. L’engouement pour la cosmogonie en France dans la seconde moitié du XIXe siècle”https://www.cairn.info/revue-romantisme-2014-4-page-32.htm

See:

ASTRONOMES FRANÇAIS 1850 - 1950 D'ABBADIE, Antoine.  www.obs-hp.fr/dictionnaire/astronomes_A-Z.pdf

See: Agnes Mary Clerke , A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century, p 202, a review of some of the later 19^th c solar astronomers.