Description
HE WAS A MATHEMATICIAN WHOSE WORK ON MATHEMATICAL ASTRONOMY WAS VERY IMPORTANT
SIMON NEWCOMB (1835-1909) SIGNED CARD, “S. Newcomb”, on a card 3.5 x 2.5, by the Canadian-American astronomer, applied mathematician (economics and statistics), and autodidactic polymath who was also the author of popular science books and science fiction novels. During the American Civil War he was hired as a professor of mathematics and as the astronomer at the United States Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C. and years later he became professor of mathematics and astronomy at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. Newcomb’s Tables of the Motion of the Earth on its Axis and Around the Sun which contains his development of the position of the earth in the solar system and was the basis of all ephemerides (tables of computed places of celestial bodies over a period of time – and table of astronomical constants) of the sun published from 1900-1983. He developed similar formulas and tables for many of the planets. The card is in fine condition, with minor age toning, and “Washington, 1894” in another hand, lower left.
$325 #12576
