A handful of moonstruck people gathered today at various sites around the country to watch Mercury’s transit across the sun. We were among them. It was spectacular, though it must be admitted that what we are talking about is a speck the size of a poppy seed passing across the face of the orange giant.
So Friedler said to me: you think we made an effort to see it? Come, let me tell you about someone who really invested in order to see the transit of Venus across the sun (Venus. Not Mercury. But the same principle). Some call him the Job of the astronomers: the French astronomer Guillaume Le Gentil.
In 1761 Le Gentil traveled specially to India to observe the transit of Venus across the sun and measure it. The transit occurs once every 121 years, and then there is another transit eight years later. But because of the Seven Years’ War, while on his way to India, our friend got stuck at sea and failed to see the phenomenon.
Bummer.
But a man like Le Gentil would not give up.
He stayed on in India and, like our father Jacob, waited eight whole years for the privilege of seeing his beloved Venus pass across the face of the sun. But what rotten luck: on June 4, 1769, the day of the event, the sky was overcast and Le Gentil could not observe the transit. The next transit would come only in another 121 years, so our friend decided to return to France after all…
On the way back our luckless friend fell ill with dysentery, nearly drowned in a storm, and only after two years of travel reached France.
And what awaited him there?
Upon his return he discovered that in his absence he had been declared dead, his property had been divided among his relatives, his wife had married another man, and his post at the Academy of Sciences had not been kept for him.
Our Job did not give up, and with the intervention of Louis XVI part of his property was returned to him.
The galaxy M32 is named after Le Gentil, as is a crater on the moon.
How wonderful that the world has such gloriously cracked people. Souls devoted to the cause of science.
By the way, to be precise, his full name is Guillaume Joseph Hyacinthe Jean-Baptiste Le Gentil de la Galaisière.
