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But to predict in the solitude of the study,
with no weapons other than pen, ink, and paper, an unknown and
enormously distant world, to calculate its orbit when as yet it had
never been seen, and to be able to say to a practical astronomer, "Point
your telescope in such a direction at such a time, and you will see a
new planet hitherto unknown to man"--this must always appeal to the
imagination with dramatic intensity, and must awaken some interest in
the dullest.
Prediction is no novelty in science; and in astronomy least of all is it
a novelty. Thousands of years ago Thales, and others whose very names we
have forgotten, could predict eclipses, but not without a certain degree
of inaccuracy. And many other phenomena were capable of prediction by
accumulated experience. A gap between Mars and Jupiter caused a missing
planet to be suspected and looked for, and to be found in a hundred
pieces. The abnormal proper-motion of Sirius suggested to Bessel the
existence of an unseen companion.


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