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John Pringle Nichol
(13 Jan 1804 - 19 Sep 1859)
Scottish astronomer and author whose practical work was accompanied by his eminent activities as a public lecturer and author popularizing astronomy and other science.
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Science Quotes by John Pringle Nichol (5 quotes)
Astronomy is not now in that stage of its history in which only a few men in a century would consent to wear out a long and healthful age in examining the Heavens. Observers of the first capacity and becoming ardour are yearly multiplying; while adequate instruments, through the advance of art, grow more accessible.
— John Pringle Nichol
In 'Conclusion', The Stellar Universe: Views of Its Arrangements, Motions, and Evolutions (1848), 186.
Can we not sympathise, for example, with the sublime and lonely Zoroaster, when, dissolved in an ecstasy of veneration before the magnanimous silence of the Heavens, he rushed out of the wilderness, proclaiming the Divine glory of the Sun and Stars?
— John Pringle Nichol
In 'Conclusion', The Stellar Universe: Views of Its Arrangements, Motions, and Evolutions (1848), 224.
May we not allowably accord all due honour to the partial, but still lofty, philosophical insight under the impulsion of which Cheremon the Egyptian Theogonist, and Pythagoras the Hierophant of the most singular community of sages the world has ever seen, declared the inscrutable essence of fire, of which the hosts of Heaven seemed only the concrete and quasi-divine manifestations, to be the very substance of the One Supreme?
— John Pringle Nichol
In 'Conclusion', The Stellar Universe: Views of Its Arrangements, Motions, and Evolutions (1848), 224-225. [A theogonist is someone who creates or writes accounts of the origins and genealogies of gods. Saint Chaeremon of Nitria was a 4th–5th century Egyptian Christian monk and one of the Desert Fathers. A hierophant is primarily a spiritual teacher or interpreter of sacred mysteries, originally referring to a chief priest in ancient Greece. —Webmaster.]
The entire annals of Observation probably do not elsewhere exhibit so extraordinary a verification of any theoretical conjecture adventured on by the human spirit!
[On the mathematical work by Urbain Le Verrier predicting the planet Neptune.]
[On the mathematical work by Urbain Le Verrier predicting the planet Neptune.]
— John Pringle Nichol
In The Planet Neptune: An Exposition and History (1848), 90. The verification of the existence of the planet Neptune was made when Johan Galle found a star in an evening observation at the position predicted in the letter he received from Le Verrier earlier that same day.
We have gazed awhile upon the gorgeous firmaments of space, and descried not a trace, not a hint, of anything like an end to their number, or a boundary to their unrepeated variety of form.
— John Pringle Nichol
In 'Conclusion', The Stellar Universe: Views of Its Arrangements, Motions, and Evolutions (1848), 223. [To descry is to catch sight of (past tense: descried). —Webmaster]
See also:
- 13 Jan - short biography, births, deaths and events on date of Nichol's birth.
- Large color picture of John Pringle Nichol - head and shoulders (500 x 700 px).
In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.
(1987) -- 
