Astronomy in Victorian Britain, unlike
that on the continent, was not funded by the government. Instead, astronomy
was the domain of wealthy amateurs who founded learned societies, commissioned
telescopes and built observatories. New telescope technologies and further observations
provided new material to explain and theorize about. One of the major theories
was the nebular hypothesis. This was the name coined by William
Whewell in his Bridgewater Treatise. Whewell
combined the theory for the origins of the solar system by Pierre-Simon
Laplace in his System of the World (1796, trans. 1830)
and the suggestion of William Herschel that observed nebulae might be new nascent
solar systems. The hypothesis was that the apparent swirling patterns observed
in the heavens were composed of gas or dust condensing into a star. Debris at
the outer edges of the neubula would become planets. The background to the Victorian
science section depicts a contemporary representation of a nebula.
The nebular hypothesis was made widely famous in two popular works, the first inspiring the latter. The first, Views of the architecture of the heavens (1837), was written by a professor of astronomy at Glasgow, John Pringle Nichol. Robert Chambers, in his anonymously published Vestiges of the natural history of creation (1844), used the nebular hypothesis as the backdrop for his theory of cosmic development or evolution. For Chambers all of nature was the unfolding enactment of deep natural laws which prescribed the evolution of the heavens, the ages of the earth, and the evolution of life. All was progress, according to Chambers, from swirling clouds of dust forming solar systems to organic life progressing ever onwards.
Related Material
- The Zodiac at Dendera and the debate over the age of the earth
- Notice of lectures on the history of astronomy in Edinburgh
Further reading
Chapman, Allan. The Victorian Amateur Astronomer: Independent Astronomical Research in Britain, 1820-1920. New York: John Wiley, 1996.
Crowe, Michael J. Modern Theories of the Universe from Herschel to Hubble. New York: Dover, 1994.
North, John D. The Norton History of Astronomy and Cosmology, New York: Norton, 1994.
Schaffer, Simon. "The Nebular Hypothesis and the Science of Progress." History, Humanity and Evolution, edited by Jim Moore. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989. pp. 131-164.
Created 2001
Last modified 19 December 2022