If they kept the relative distance of the night before, they were all stars; if any one had approached or receded from the others, it was a planet; and when the father looked at his son's record he said, 'One of those has moved, and it is the one which I thought last night was the planet.' He looked again at the group, and the son said, 'Father, do give me a look at the new planet--you are the only man in America that can do it!' And then we both looked; it looked precisely like a small star, and George and I both asked, 'What made you think last night that it was the new planet ?' Mr.Bond could only say, 'I don't know, it looked different from the others.' "It is always so--you cannot get a man of genius to explain steps, he leaps.
"After the discovery of this planet, Professor Peirce, in our own country, declared that it was not the planet of the theory, and therefore its discovery was a happy accident.

But it seemed to me that it was the planet of the theory, just as much if it varied a good deal from its prescribed place as if it varied a little.

So you might have said that Uranus was not the Uranus of the theory.
"Sir John Herschel said, 'Its movements have been felt trembling along the far-reaching line of our analysis, with a certainty hardly inferior to ocular demonstration.' I consider it was superior to ocular demonstration, as the action of the mind is above that of the senses.
Adams, in his study at Cambridge, England, and Leverrier in his closet at Paris, poring over their logarithms, knew better the locus of that outside planet than all the practical astronomers of the world put together....
"Of course in Paris I went to the Imperial Observatory, to visit Leverrier.

I carried letters from Professor Airy, who also sent a letter in advance by post.

Leverrier called at my hotel, and left cards; then came a note, and I went to tea.
"Leverrier had succeeded Arago.