Sky.and.Telescope_

30 August 2014 sky & telescope

History of Astronomy

ematical ability, a scholarship to St. John’s College, Cam-

bridge. In the rigorous Cambridge mathematics tripos

in 1883, he received the prestigious John Herschel Prize

for mathematical astronomy. He could have remained in

England, but he was homesick for the beautiful moun-

tains and fjords of New Zealand’s South Island, and

instead opted for an appointment as teacher of mathemat-

ics at the new Boys’ School in Oamaru. Five years later he

moved on to a higher-paying position at Christ’s College

in Christchurch.

An overworked headmaster dismissed Giff ord, scape-

goating him for the school’s shortcomings in mathemat-

ics and science. Giff ord drifted for a while. For a time

he tried his hand at selling photographs of New Zealand

landscapes, but there was no demand! Finally, in 1895, he

was hired at Wellington College, on New Zealand’s North

Island, and began a teaching career that would last 32

years, becoming a beloved fi gure known by his students

as “Uncle Charlie.” As one of them recalled, “Anyone who

has read Goodbye Mr. Chips will know Mr. Giff ord.”

Meanwhile, he had become a disciple of another mag-

netic personality, Alexander William Bickerton, 19 years

his senior. From their fi rst meeting in Christchurch in the

1890s until the latter’s death in 1929, the two men engaged

in voluminous correspondence, much of it concerned with

the “Partial Impact Theory,” an eccentric notion hardly

remembered today but the seed from which Giff ord would

develop a coherent theory of the impact process.

Bicky

Alexander Bickerton, often referred to aff ectionately as

“Bicky,” was a native of Alton, Hampshire (England). He

was not at fi rst a promising student. One of his teachers

at the grammar school — trying to be positive — agreed

that he was “not a complete idiot.” After various attempts

to make a living, including setting up a woodworking fac-

tory in England’s Cotswolds using machinery of his own

invention, Bicky began attending night classes in science

at age 21. He had discovered his niche. After winning a

Royal Exhibition Scholarship to the Royal School of Mines

in London, he started to present his own night classes in

science. But his fi rst well-advertised lecture drew an audi-

ence of precisely one!

Ever the empiricist, he made a point of attending

the services of noted religious preachers to learn their

techniques. His conclusion: “To instruct a Londoner the

lecture must be made as entertaining as a music hall

and as sensational as a circus.” As physics and chemis-

try teachers ever since have found, “explosions and loud

bangs were most eff ective in keeping students awake, in

retaining their interest, and in increasing attendance.”

Before long, Bicky was attracting large audiences, and was

widely known as “Fireworks.”

Summoned to New Zealand in 1874 to be professor

of chemistry at Canterbury College (the precursor of the

University of Canterbury in Christchurch), he continued

his dramatic demonstrations, and gave popular lectures

that commanded large fees. Two years later, his attention

was riveted by a bright nova in Cygnus. Nova Cygni 1876

followed the usual trajectory and faded to obscurity (it is

now known as Q Cygni, and remains visible as a 15th-

magnitude object except during its occasional fl are-ups).

Bicky had a fl ash of insight and conjectured that a partial

grazing collision of two dark stars had produced the nova.

Thus he unveiled his “partial impact theory,” giving a

paper, “On Temporary and Variable Stars,” on July 4, 1878,

to the Philosophical Institute of Canterbury.

The upshot of his idea was that stars, being distant

hot bodies in the process of radiating away their energy,

must cool and eventually become dark. Countless dead

suns presumably populate the universe. Traveling unseen

through space, two of these dark stars, moving at tremen-

dous speed, must sometimes collide, usually in glancing

blows. On impact, material would be torn from each body.

Part of the collision’s kinetic energy would heat this torn-

off material, producing the nova. As it cooled, the nova

would darken then disappear forever.

The idea was reasonable, if quirky. Bicky soon began

to extend it to explain numerous other heavenly phenom-

ena — variable stars, double and multiple stars, planetary

nebulae, even occasional bright fl ashes seen on Mars. He

MASTER OF THE MOON

Algernon Charles Giff ord

(1861–1948) performed

rigorous mathemati-

cal analyses after World

War I to show that lunar

craters formed by meteorite

impacts. Unfortunately,

being a resident of New

Zealand worked against

him. He published in an

obscure New Zealand

science journal, and never

received the credit he

deserved.

BICKY Alexander Wil-

liam Bickerton (1842–

1929), known as “Bicky”

to his friends, was an

imaginative thinker who

served as a mentor to

Giff ord. Although Bicky

had the right ideas

about the formation of

lunar craters, he lacked

the mathematical train-

ing to turn them into a

publishable theory.

ALEXANDER TURNBULL LIBRARY/ NATIONAL LIBRARY OF NEW ZEALAND

CHARLES CHILTON PHOTOGRAPHS / MACMILLAN BROWN LIBRARY / UNIVERSITY OF CANTERBURY