John Couch Adams
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John Couch Adams was an English mathematician and astronomer who lived from 1819 to 1892. He is historically significant for his contributions to mathematics and astronomy during the 19th century.
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John Couch Adams (/kuːtʃ/ KOOTCH; 5 June 1819 – 21 January 1892) was a British mathematician and astronomer. He was born in Laneast, near Launceston, Cornwall, and died in Cambridge.
His most famous achievement was predicting the existence and position of Neptune, using only mathematics. The calculations were made to explain discrepancies with Uranus's orbit and the laws of Kepler and Newton. At the same time, but unknown to each other, the same calculations were made by Urbain Le Verrier. Le Verrier sent his co-ordinates to Berlin Observatory astronomer Johann Gottfried Galle, who confirmed the existence of the planet on 23 September 1846, finding it within 1° of Le Verrier's predicted location. (There was, and to some extent still is, some controversy over the apportionment of credit for the discovery; see Discovery of Neptune.) Later, Adams explained the origin of meteor showers, which holds to the present day.
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1819 births1892 deaths19th-century British astronomers19th-century English mathematicians19th-century MethodistsAcademics of the University of St AndrewsAlumni of St John's College, CambridgeBritish fellows of the Royal SocietyCornish MethodistsFellows of the American Academy of Arts and SciencesForeign associates of the National Academy of Sciences