By passing over these important developments it is possible to trace some of the steps in the crowning triumph of the Newtonian theory, by which the planet Neptune was added to the known members of the solar system by the independent researches of Professor J.C. Adams and of M. Le Verrier, in 1846.
It will be best to introduce this subject by relating how the eighteenth century increased the number of known planets, which was then only six, including the earth.
On March 13th, 1781, Sir William Herschel was, as usual, engaged on examining some small stars, and, noticing that one of them appeared to be larger than the fixed stars, suspected that it might be a comet. To test this he increased his magnifying power from 227 to 460 and 932, finding that, unlike the fixed stars near it, its definition was impaired and its size increased. This convinced him that the object was a comet, and he was not surprised to find on succeeding nights that the position was changed, the motion being in the ecliptic. He gave the observations of five weeks to the Royal Society without a suspicion that the object was a new planet.
For a long time people could not compute a satisfactory orbit for the supposed comet, because it seemed to be near the perihelion, and no comet had ever been observed with a perihelion distance from the sun greater than four times the earth's distance. Lexell was the first to suspect that this was a new planet eighteen times as far from the sun as the earth is. In January, 1783, Laplace published the elliptic elements. The discoverer of a planet has a right to name it, so Herschel called it Georgium Sidus, after the king. But Lalande urged the adoption of the name Herschel. Bode suggested Uranus, and this was adopted. The new planet was found to rank in size next to Jupiter and Saturn, being 4.3 times the diameter of the earth.
In 1787 Herschel discovered two satellites, both revolving in nearly the same plane, inclined 80° to the ecliptic, and the motion of both was retrograde.
In 1772, before Herschel's discovery, Bode[1] had discovered a curious arbitrary law of planetary distances. Opposite each planet's name write the figure 4; and, in succession, add the numbers 0, 3, 6, 12, 24, 48, 96, etc., to the 4, always doubling the last numbers. You then get the planetary distances.