perihelion (the point of its orbit nearest the sun, p in fig. 80) about April 13th of the following year, though owing to various defects in his calculation there might be an error of a month either way. The comet was anxiously watched for by the astronomical world, and was actually discovered by an amateur, George Palitzsch (1723–1788) of Saxony, on Christmas Day, 1758; it passed its perihelion just a month and a day before the time assigned by Clairaut.
Halley's brilliant conjecture was thus justified; a new member was added to the solar system, and hopes were raised—to be afterwards amply fulfilled—that in other cases also the motions of comets might be reduced to rule, and calculated according to the same principles as those of less erratic bodies. The superstitions attached to comets were of course at the same time still further shaken.
Clairaut appears to have had great personal charm and to have been a conspicuous figure in Paris society. Unfortunately his strength was not equal to the combined claims of social and scientific labours, and he died in 1765 at an age when much might still have been hoped from his extraordinary abilities.[1]
232. Jean-le-Rond D'Alembert was found in 1717 as an infant on the steps of the church of St. Jean-le-Rond in Paris, but was afterwards recognised, and to some extent provided for, by his father, though his home was with his foster-parents. After receiving a fair school education, he studied law and medicine, but then turned his attention to mathematics. He first attracted notice in mathematical circles by a paper written in 1738, and was admitted to the Academy of Sciences two years afterwards. His earliest important work was the Traité de Dynamique (1743), which contained, among other contributions to the subject, the first statement of a dynamical principle which bears his name, and which, though in one sense only a corollary from Newton's Third Law of Motion, has proved to be of immense service in nearly all general dynamical problems,
- ↑ Longevity has been a remarkable characteristic of the great mathematical astronomers: Newton died in his 85th year; Euler, Lagrange, and Laplace lived to be more than 75, and D'Alembert was almost 66 at his death.
