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This medal has been minted in France commemorate the French mathematician, the father of the meteorology, Urbain Jean Joseph Le VERRIER, 1811 – 1877.
This medal has been designed by the French medalist A. DUBOIS.
Urbain Jean Joseph Le Verrier; (11 March 1811 – 23 September 1877)
was a French mathematician who
specialized in celestial
mechanics and is best known for his part in the discovery of Neptune.
To Le Verrier is due the organization of the meteorological service for France,
especially the weather warnings for seaports, by which today the weather for
the
following twenty-four hours can be announced with much probability, a matter of
especial importance for agriculture and shipping.
av. The
portrait of Le Verrier
rv. The symbolic
motive
diameter
– 59 mm (2¼“)
weight
– 79.30 gr, (2.80 oz)
metal – bronze, mint patina
Le
Verrier was born at Saint-Lô, Manche,
In
1846, Le Verrier became a member of the French
Academy of Sciences, and in 1855, he was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. Le Verrier's name
is one of the 72 names inscribed on the Eiffel Tower.
Le
Verrier's most famous achievement is his prediction of the existence of the
then unknown planet
There
was, and to an extent still is, controversy over the apportionment of credit
for the discovery. There is no ambiguity to the discovery claims of Le Verrier,
I
mention these dates merely to show that my results were arrived at
independently, and previously to the publication of those of M. Le Verrier, and
not with the intention of interfering with his just claims to the honours of
the discovery ; for there is no doubt that his researches were first
published to the world, and led to the actual discovery of the planet by Dr.
Galle, so that the facts stated above cannot detract, in the slightest degree,
from the credit due to M. Le Verrier.
In
1859, Le Verrier was the first to report that the slow precession of Mercury’s orbit
around the Sun could not
be completely explained by Newtonian
mechanics and perturbations by the known planets. He suggested,
among possible explanations, that another planet (or perhaps, instead, a series
of smaller 'corpuscules') might exist in an orbit even closer to the Sun than
that of Mercury, to account for this perturbation. (Other explanations
considered included a slight oblateness of the Sun.) The success of the search
for Neptune based on
its perturbations of the orbit of Uranus led astronomers to
place some faith in this possible explanation, and the hypothetical planet was
even named Vulcan. However, no such planet was ever found, and the
anomalous precession was eventually explained by general relativity theory.
Le
Verrier had a wife and children. He died in Paris, France and was buried in
the Cimetière Montparnasse. A large stone celestial globe sits over his grave.
He will be remembered by the phrase attributed to Arago: "the man who
discovered a planet with the point of his pen."
An astronomer and director of the
observatory at Paris, born at Saint Lô, the
ancient Briodurum later called Saint-Laudifanum, in north-western France, 11 May, 1811; died at Paris, 25 September, 1877. From
1831 the talented youth studied at the Ecole Polytechnique with such success
that at the end of his course he was appointed an instructor there. While
connected with the school he showed a strong
predilection for mathematical studies, above all for such problems as
His most important
work, however, was the construction of tables representing the movements of the
sun, moon, and planets: "Tables du Soleil" (1858); "Tablesde
Mercure" (1859); "Tables de Vénus" (1861); "Tables de
Mars" (1861); "Tables de Jupiter" (1876); "Tables de
Saturne" (1876); "Théorie d'Uranus" (1876); "Théorie de
Neptune" (1876); "Tables d'Uranus" (1877). All these
publications were preceded by theoretical investigations: "Théorie du
mouvement apparent du Soleil" (1858); "Théoriede Mercure"
(1859); "Théorie de Vénus" (1861); "Théorie de Mars"
(1861), etc. Considerations similar to those which led to the discovery of the
planet
With all his
erudition Le Verrier was a zealous adherent and true son of the Catholic Church; even as deputy of the
Assembly he openly acknowledged and defended his Catholic faith before all the world. He was
also a ready speaker, one in no way discomposed by the attacks of opponents,
for he knew how by profound and logical statements to convince his
hearers quickly. When dying he said in the words of the aged Simeon: "Nunc
dimittis servum tuum, Domine, in pace". Those who spoke at the funeral of
this remarkable man could truthfully assert that the study of the star-worlds
stimulated in him the living belief of the Christian to new fervour. Even in the
sessions of the Academy he made no concealment of his faith nor of his childlike
dependence on the Catholic Church. When, on 5 June, 1876, he
presented to the Academy his completed tables for Jupiter, the result of
thirty-five years of toil, he emphasized particularly the fact that only the
thought of the great Creator of the universe had kept him from flagging,
and had maintained his enthusiasm for his task. He also on this occasion spoke
strongly, like his colleague Dumas, against the materialistic and sceptical
tendencies of so many scholars. To Le
Verrier is due the organization of the meteorological
service for France,
especially the weather warnings for seaports, by which today the weather for
the
following twenty-four hours can be announced with much probability, a matter of
especial importance for agriculture and shipping. The "Annales de
l'Observatoirede