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Bowditch and the tides.

Following Trevor Kenchington's recent recommendation, I've just invested in
B E Cartwright's "Tides - A Scientific History".(Cambridge University press
1999), which exists in hardback and paperback.

Just my sort of book, really; a thorough treatment of the growth of
scientific understanding. I'm still only part-way through. Hard going in
places, though. Cartwright offers few concessions to make it an easy-read.

One disappointment is that nowhere does Cartwright seem to provide an easy
answer to the natural question that everyone asks- "Why are there two tides
a day when there's only one Moon to attract the water?"

On reaching page 69 I came to a passage which may interest Bowditch
enthusiasts. It refers to a translation from the French of Laplace's great
work, his "Treatise on Celestial Mechanics", published in 1799, in several
"books", Book IV dealing with the dynamic effect on water masses of the
gravitational forces that give rise to the tides-

Cartwright says-
"Book IV is included in the second volume of the abundantly annotated
English translation of the Mecanique Celeste by the Americam mathematician
Nathaniel Bowditch. (Bowditch, who also authored a famous treatise on
navigation, did not live to translate Laplace's fifth volume, containing
Book XIII.)

Another notorious feature of Laplace's writing is his frequent omission of
derivatory exposition obvious to him, leaving the reader to fill in the
gaps. In the preface to his translation of Mecanique Celeste, Bowditch
writes: 'Whenever I meet in LA PLACE (sic) with the words "Thus it plainly
appears... [Ainsi il est clair que...]", I am sure that hours, perhaps days
of hard study will alone enable to discover HOW it plainly appears.'
Fortunately for the present discussion, these lacunae do not often occur in
the sections dealing with tides."

The reference given in Cartwright is to-

"Bowditch, N. Mecanique Celeste by the Marquis de Laplace, translated with
a commentary, Volumes 1-4, Boston, 1829-1839. (Reprinted, with vol. 5 in
the original French, Chelsea Pub., Boston, 1966."

================

My own copy of the 1977 "Bowditch" Navigator (and probably all others too)
contains a short biography of the man, and refers to his Laplace
translation, stating that he considered it to be "the greatest work of his
life".

A remarkable achievement for a mariner who was entirely self-taught.

George.


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