Vernier Quotes (2 quotes)
~~[Misattributed]~~ That little vernier on whose slender lines
The midnight taper trembles as it shines,
A silent index, tracks the planets’ march
In all their wanderings through the ethereal arch;
Tells through the mist where dazzled Mercury burns,
And marks the spot where Uranus returns.
The midnight taper trembles as it shines,
A silent index, tracks the planets’ march
In all their wanderings through the ethereal arch;
Tells through the mist where dazzled Mercury burns,
And marks the spot where Uranus returns.
This is too often seen online attributed incorrectly to Samuel Pierpont Langley, who merely quoted these lines in his The New Astronomy (1888), without naming its actual original author. The poem was actually written decades earlier by Oliver Wendell Holmes, published as Urania: A Rhymed Lesson (1846), 9-10. Holmes delivered it at the Boston Mercantile Library Association (14 Oct 1846).
Go to yon tower, where busy science plies
Her vast antennae, feeling through the skies
That little vernier on whose slender lines
The midnight taper trembles as it shines,
A silent index, tracks the planets’ march
In all their wanderings through the ethereal arch;
Tells through the mist where dazzled Mercury burns,
And marks the spot where Uranus returns.
Her vast antennae, feeling through the skies
That little vernier on whose slender lines
The midnight taper trembles as it shines,
A silent index, tracks the planets’ march
In all their wanderings through the ethereal arch;
Tells through the mist where dazzled Mercury burns,
And marks the spot where Uranus returns.
From poem, pronounced to the Boston Mercantile Library Association (14 Oct, 1846), published as Urania: A Rhymed Lesson (1846), 9-10. [Note: This is too often seen online attributed incorrectly to Samuel Pierpont Langley, who quoted several lines from the poem in his New Astronomy (1888), without naming its actual original author. —Webmaster]
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) -- 
