"... Only a few weeks since I received a letter from a lady who wished
to come to make me a visit, and to 'scan the heavens,' as she termed it.
Now, just as she wrote, the clock, which I was careful not to meddle
with, had been rapidly gaining time, and I was standing before it,
watching it from hour to hour, and slightly changing its rate by
dropping small weights upon its pendulum. Time is so important an
element with the astronomer, that all else is subordinate to it.
"Then, too, the uneducated assume the unvarying exactness of
mathematical results; while, in reality, mathematical results are often
only approximations. We say the sun is 91,000,000 miles from the earth,
plus or minus a probable error; that is, we are right, probably, within,
say, 100,000 miles; or, the sun is 91,000,000 minus 100,000 miles, or it
is 91,000,000 plus 100,000 miles off; and this probable error is only a
probability.
"If we make one more observation it cannot agree with any one of our
determinations, and it changes our probable error.
[Illustration: BUST OF MARIA MITCHELL.
_From Original made by Miss Emma F. Brigham in 1877_]
"This ignorance of the masses leads to a misconception in two ways; the
little that a scientist can do, they do not understand,--they suppose
him to be godlike in his capacity, and they do not see results; they
overrate him and they underrate him--they underrate his work.
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