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Percival Lowell
Percival Lowell (/ˈloʊəl/; March 13, 1855 – November 12, 1916) was an American businessman, author, mathematician, and astronomer who fueled speculation that there were canals on Mars, and furthered theories of a ninth planet within the Solar System. He founded the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, and formed the beginning of the effort that led to the discovery of Pluto 14 years after his death.
Percival Lowell was born on March 13, 1855, in Boston, Massachusetts, the first son of Augustus Lowell and Katherine Bigelow Lowell. A member of the Brahmin Lowell family, his siblings included the poet Amy Lowell, the educator and legal scholar Abbott Lawrence Lowell, and Elizabeth Lowell Putnam, an early activist for prenatal care. They were the great-grandchildren of John Lowell and, on their mother's side, the grandchildren of Abbott Lawrence.
Percival graduated from the Noble and Greenough School in 1872 and Harvard College in 1876 with distinction in mathematics. While at Harvard he joined Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity. At his college graduation, he gave a speech, considered very advanced for its time, on the nebular hypothesis. He was later awarded honorary degrees from Amherst College and Clark University. After graduation he ran a cotton mill for six years.
In the 1880s, Lowell traveled extensively in the Far East. In August 1883, he served as a foreign secretary and counselor for a special Korean diplomatic mission to the United States. He then went to Korea and lived there from December 1883 to March 1884. In 1884, he took the earliest surviving photograph of a Korean monarch: King Gojong. He also spent significant periods of time in Japan, writing books on Japanese religion, psychology, and behavior. His texts are filled with observations and academic discussions of various aspects of Japanese life, including language, religious practices, economics, travel in Japan, and the development of personality.
Books by Lowell on the Orient include Noto: An Unexplored Corner of Japan (1891) and Occult Japan, or the Way of the Gods (1894), the latter from his third and final trip to the region. His time in Korea inspired Chosön: The Land of the Morning Calm (1886, Boston). The most popular of Lowell's books on the Orient, The Soul of the Far East (1888), contains an early synthesis of some of his ideas that, in essence, postulated that human progress is a function of the qualities of individuality and imagination.[citation needed] The writer Lafcadio Hearn called it a "colossal, splendid, godlike book." At his death he left with his assistant Wrexie Leonard an unpublished manuscript of a book entitled Peaks and Plateaux in the Effect on Tree Life.
After his death, Lowell's wife, Constance, contested his will granting most of his estate to the observatory, halting its work for ten years.
Lowell was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1892. He moved back to the United States in 1893. He became determined to study Mars and astronomy as a full-time career after reading Camille Flammarion's La planète Mars. He was particularly interested in the canals of Mars, as drawn by Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli, who was director of the Milan Observatory. The Boston geologist George Russel Agassiz noted that Lowell made the decision to begin his observations after hearing that Schiaparelli began to experience failing eyesight. Beginning in the winter of 1893–94, using his wealth and influence, Lowell dedicated himself to the study of astronomy, founding the observatory which bears his name. He chose Flagstaff, Arizona Territory, as the home of his new observatory. At an altitude of over 2,100 meters (6,900 feet), with few cloudy nights, and far from city lights, Flagstaff was an excellent site for astronomical observations. This marked the first time an observatory had been deliberately located in a remote, elevated place for optimal seeing which included enhanced image quality, sharpness and steadiness. At his Flagstaff observatory Lowell favored the use of smaller telescopes rather than larger ones, believing that they were usually better for viewing fine planetary details. He was assisted in setting up his observatory by William H. Pickering, another observer of Mars who had noted the lines seen by Schiaparelli as well.
Lowell was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1897.
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Percival Lowell
Percival Lowell (/ˈloʊəl/; March 13, 1855 – November 12, 1916) was an American businessman, author, mathematician, and astronomer who fueled speculation that there were canals on Mars, and furthered theories of a ninth planet within the Solar System. He founded the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, and formed the beginning of the effort that led to the discovery of Pluto 14 years after his death.
Percival Lowell was born on March 13, 1855, in Boston, Massachusetts, the first son of Augustus Lowell and Katherine Bigelow Lowell. A member of the Brahmin Lowell family, his siblings included the poet Amy Lowell, the educator and legal scholar Abbott Lawrence Lowell, and Elizabeth Lowell Putnam, an early activist for prenatal care. They were the great-grandchildren of John Lowell and, on their mother's side, the grandchildren of Abbott Lawrence.
Percival graduated from the Noble and Greenough School in 1872 and Harvard College in 1876 with distinction in mathematics. While at Harvard he joined Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity. At his college graduation, he gave a speech, considered very advanced for its time, on the nebular hypothesis. He was later awarded honorary degrees from Amherst College and Clark University. After graduation he ran a cotton mill for six years.
In the 1880s, Lowell traveled extensively in the Far East. In August 1883, he served as a foreign secretary and counselor for a special Korean diplomatic mission to the United States. He then went to Korea and lived there from December 1883 to March 1884. In 1884, he took the earliest surviving photograph of a Korean monarch: King Gojong. He also spent significant periods of time in Japan, writing books on Japanese religion, psychology, and behavior. His texts are filled with observations and academic discussions of various aspects of Japanese life, including language, religious practices, economics, travel in Japan, and the development of personality.
Books by Lowell on the Orient include Noto: An Unexplored Corner of Japan (1891) and Occult Japan, or the Way of the Gods (1894), the latter from his third and final trip to the region. His time in Korea inspired Chosön: The Land of the Morning Calm (1886, Boston). The most popular of Lowell's books on the Orient, The Soul of the Far East (1888), contains an early synthesis of some of his ideas that, in essence, postulated that human progress is a function of the qualities of individuality and imagination.[citation needed] The writer Lafcadio Hearn called it a "colossal, splendid, godlike book." At his death he left with his assistant Wrexie Leonard an unpublished manuscript of a book entitled Peaks and Plateaux in the Effect on Tree Life.
After his death, Lowell's wife, Constance, contested his will granting most of his estate to the observatory, halting its work for ten years.
Lowell was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1892. He moved back to the United States in 1893. He became determined to study Mars and astronomy as a full-time career after reading Camille Flammarion's La planète Mars. He was particularly interested in the canals of Mars, as drawn by Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli, who was director of the Milan Observatory. The Boston geologist George Russel Agassiz noted that Lowell made the decision to begin his observations after hearing that Schiaparelli began to experience failing eyesight. Beginning in the winter of 1893–94, using his wealth and influence, Lowell dedicated himself to the study of astronomy, founding the observatory which bears his name. He chose Flagstaff, Arizona Territory, as the home of his new observatory. At an altitude of over 2,100 meters (6,900 feet), with few cloudy nights, and far from city lights, Flagstaff was an excellent site for astronomical observations. This marked the first time an observatory had been deliberately located in a remote, elevated place for optimal seeing which included enhanced image quality, sharpness and steadiness. At his Flagstaff observatory Lowell favored the use of smaller telescopes rather than larger ones, believing that they were usually better for viewing fine planetary details. He was assisted in setting up his observatory by William H. Pickering, another observer of Mars who had noted the lines seen by Schiaparelli as well.
Lowell was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1897.
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