NEPTUNE another of the OUTER planets, after Uranus was discovered in 1781,dynamicists tried to determine it's
orbit. They found that Uranus's motions were being affected by the gravitational force of another planet beyond Uranus.
An interesting chapter in the history of science then ensued. Unknown to each other an English and a French astronomer set out in the 1840s to predict where the
undiscovered planet must be. Based on Bode's rule, which seemed to be confirmed by Uranus, they assumed a solar distance of 38
AU-ironically, as Neptune is the one serious failure of Bode's rule. John Adams, just finished his undergraduate work at Cambridge, had trouble getting his professors interested in the search.Urbain LeVerrier predicted a position in 1846. and the English astronomers
began a desultory search actually spotting it, but failed to recognize it.Meanwhile,LeVerrier got two young German astronomers interested and they discovered it within half an hour of starting there search on September 23 1846.Adams and LeVerrier are both credited with the discovery, but at the time it caused a scandal because of the failure of the British to grasp there opportunity..................
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