Le Verrier: French mathematician with celestial aspirations

In the Montparnasse Cemetery in Paris is a distinctive statue with a large stone celestial globe. He was “the man who discovered a planet with the point of his pen.”

It is the gravestone of French mathematician, Urbain Jean Joseph Le Verrier (1811-1877), born in Saint-Lo, Manche. He specialized in celestial mechanics and predicted the existence and position of the unknown planet Neptune, using only mathematical calculations. It was the discovery of the planet that placed Le Verrier among a unique circle of scholars – one that discovered a planet without a telescope.

He also worked on comet theories while he was stationed at the Paris Observatory. He was a member of the French Academy of Sciences, and in 1855 became an elected foreign member of the Swedish Academy of Sciences.

His name is one of the 72 names etched on the Eiffel Tower in Paris.

Martina Nicolls is the author of Bardot's Comet.

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