| Authorised form of name | Adams; John Couch (1819 - 1892); mathematician and astronomer |
| Dates | 1819 - 1892 |
| Nationality | British |
| Place of birth | Laneast, near Launceston, Cornwall, England |
| Date of birth | 5 June 1819 |
| Place of death | The Observatory, Cambridge, England |
| Date of death | 21 January 1892 |
| Dates and places | Burial:
St Giles' cemetery, now Ascension Cemetery, PLOT 2D5, Cambridge, England
|
| Occupation | mathematician and astronomer |
| Research field | Astronomy |
| Mathematics |
| Activity | Education:
Local school at Laneast, Cornwall, England; St John's College, Cambridge. BA (1843, Senior Wrangler and 1st Smith's Prizeman), MA
Career:
Fellow, St John's College, Cambridge; Lowndean Professor of Astronomy, Cambridge University (1858-192); Director, Cambridge Observatory (1861-1892); died after a long illness.
Memberships:
FRAS (President 1851–1853; 1874–1876)
Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Awards/Medals:
Smith's Prize 1843
Adams Prize 1848
Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society 1866 |
| Membership category | Fellow |
| Date of election | 07/06/1849 |
| Age at election | 30 |
| Proposer | James Booth; Eaton Hodgkinson; Philip Henry Pye Smith; Alexander Tweedie; William Whewell; James Challis; William Hopkins; Robert Willis; William Hallowes Miller, John Hymers |
| Richard Sheepshanks; Henry Broughham; David Thomas Ansted; Baden Powell; William Henry Smyth; Charles Brooke; John Wrottesley, Charles Babbage |
| Royal Society activity | Royal Society roles:
VP 1875-1876
Medals and prizes:
Copley Medal 1848 |
| Relationships | Parents: Thomas Adams (1788–1859), tenant farmer, and Tabitha Knill Grylls (1796–1866), a farmer's daughter.
Siblings: William Grylls Adams (FRS 1872)
Spouse: Eliza Bruce, daughter of Halliday Bruce of Dublin (2 May 1863) |
| Published works | RCN 50645
RCN 13728 |
| General context | Discovered the origin and orbit of the Leonids meteor shower.
Predicted the location of Neptune in the sky by mathematical calculation.
Remembered for Linear multistep methods and Tidal acceleration.
Promoted women in astronomy. |
| Related images | Discover a selection of related images in our picture library |
| Sources | Sources:
Bulloch's Roll; DNB; DSB
References:
David W Hughes, 'J C Adams, Cambridge and Neptune', review of H M Harrison, Voyager in Time and Space: The Life of John Couch Adams, Cambridge Astronomer in NR 1996 vol 50 pp 245-248, plate
R W Home, 'The Royal Society and the Empire: the colonial and Commonwealth Fellowship. Part 2. After 1847' in NR 2003 vol 57 pp 47-84
R Iliffe and J Young, 'Report. Newton on the net: first and prospective fruits of a Royal Society grant' in NR 2004 vol 58 pp 83-88
W Sheehan and S Thurber 'John Couch Adams's Asperger Syndrome and the British non-discovery of Neptune' NR 2007 vol 61 pp285-300 |
| Virtual International Authority File | http://viaf.org/viaf/19822938 |
| Royal Society code | NA7558 |
| Reference number | Title | Date |
| MM/14/79 | Note from JC Adams supporting James Challis's application for a Royal Society grant to enable Mr Edward Walker to publish his Adams Prize essay | 28 September 1865 |
| EC/1849/01 | Adams, John Couch: certificate of election to the Royal Society | |
| MS/710/3 | Letter from John Couch Adams, Queen's Hotel, Penzance, to Caroline Fox | 9 July 1864 |
| NLB/5/1197 | Copy letter from an unknown correspondent, to Messrs Harrison & Sons | 25 January 1892 |
| NLB/8/740 | Copy letter from Herbert Rix, to Sir George Gabriel Stokes, Fellow of the Royal Society | 15 December 1893 |
| RR/1/245 | Referee's report by John Couch Adams, on several unnamed papers by William Thomson | 13 November 1850 |
| RR/5/120 | Referee's report by John Couch Adams, on a paper 'On the volumes of pedal surfaces' by Thomas Archer Hirst | [1863] |
| RR/7/19 | Referee's report by John Couch Adams, on a paper 'On the proof of the law of errors of observations' by Morgan William Crofton | 1870 |
| RR/6/22 | Referee's report by John Couch Adams, on a paper 'On the corrections of Bouvard’s elements of Jupiter and Saturn (Paris, 1821)' by Hugh Breen | nd [1869] |
| RR/3/262 | Referee's report by John Couch Adams, on a paper 'Elements of a mathematical theory of elasticity' by William Thomson, Lord Kelvin | 1 July 1856 |
| RR/9/333 | Referee's report by John Couch Adams, on a paper 'On the luni-solar variations of magnetic declination and horizontal force at Bombay, and of declination at Trevandrum' by Charles Chambers | 14 May 1886 |
| MS/257/1/16 | Letter from John Couch Adams, Cambridge Observatory to Edward Sabine | 24 March 1868 |
| RR/2/2 | Referee's report by John Lubbock, on a paper 'On the secular variation of the moon's mean motion' by John Couch Adams | 25 June 1853 |
| MS/427/110 | Copy letter from [Thomas Henry] Huxley, Secretary of the Royal Society; to the Secretary of the H. M. Treasury | 17 June 1881 |
| MS/427/289 | Copy letter from [Michael] Foster, Secretary of the Royal Society; to Leonard Courtney Esq. [M.P, Treasury] | 12 July 1883 |
| MS/427/430 | Copy letter from [Thomas Henry] Huxley, President of the Royal Society; to the Astronomer Royal [William Henry Mahoney Christie] | 23 May 1885 |
| IM/Maull/000028 | Adams, John Couch | nd |
| NLB/2/16 | Copy letter from Herbert Rix, to Professor John Couch Adams, Fellow of the Royal Society | 5 December 1887 |
| RR/2/210 | Referee's report by John Couch Adams, on a paper 'On the theory of definite integrals' by William Henry Leighton Russell | 23 May 1855 |
| RR/10/29 | Referee's report by John Couch Adams, on a paper 'On figures of equilibrium of rotating masses of fluid' by George Howard Darwin | 22 June 1887 |
| RR/5/249 | Referee's report by John Couch Adams, on a paper 'Experiments, made at Watford, on the vibrations occasioned by railway trains passing through a tunnel' by James South | 11 July 1863 |
| PT/47/6 | Paper, 'On the secular variation of the moon's mean motion' by J C [John Couch] Adams | 16 June 1853 |
| MC/5/288 | Letter from J C [John Couch] Adams, Pembroke College, [Cambridge], to [Lord Wrottesley], President of the Royal Society and to the Council | 3 July 1857 |
| RR/4/59 | Referee's report by John Couch Adams, on a paper 'On the gyroscope' by Arthur Hill Curtis | 1861 |
| MC/12/296 | Letter from J C [John Couch] Adams, Observatory Cambridge, to [William Spottiswoode], President of the Royal Society | 13 January 1883 |
| MC/12/366 | Letter from J C [John Couch] Adams, Observatory Cambridge, to Walter White, [Assistant Secretary of the Royal Society] | 8 November 1883 |
| MC/12/367 | Letter from J C [John Couch] Adams, Observatory Cambridge, to Professor [Michael] Foster, [Secretary of the Royal Society] | 10 November 1883 |
| MC/12 | Volume 12 of miscellaneous correspondence regarding business matters, sent to the Royal Society | 1880-1883 |
| RR/9/7 | Referee's report by John Couch Adams, on a paper 'On the stresses caused in the interior of the earth by the weight of continents and mountains' by George Howard Darwin | 18 January 1882 |
| RR/8/53 | Referee's report by John Couch Adams, on a paper 'On the calculation of the trajectories of shot' by William Davidson Niven | nd [1877] |
| AP/60/15/4 | Unpublished letter, regarding 'Extension of the value of E to 735 places of decimals; and of log 2, log 3 and log 5 to 310 decimals' from W [William] Shanks to George Gabriel Stokes | 25 September 1878 |
| AP/60/15/3 | Unpublished letter, regarding 'Extension of the value of E to 735 places of decimals; and of log 2, log 3 and log 5 to 310 decimals' from W [William] Shanks to George Gabriel Stokes | 4 May 1878 |
| AP/60/15 | Unpublished paper, 'Extension of the value of E to 735 places of decimals; and of log 2, log 3 and log 5 to 310 decimals' by W [William] Shanks | 1878 |
| HS/1/4 | Letter, from John Couch Adams to Sir John Herschel, dated at Launceston | 6 October 1848 |
| PP/10/5 | Paper, 'Supplementary note on the values of the Napierian logarithms of 2, 3, 5, 7, and 10, and of the Modulus of common logarithms' by John Couch Adams | 1886 |
| RR/2/1 | Referee's report by George Biddell Airy, on a paper 'On the secular variation of the moon's mean motion' by John Couch Adams | 23 June 1853 |
| RR/3/230 | Letter from John Couch Adams, on a paper 'On the stability of loose earth' by William John Macquorn Rankine | 29 December 1855 |
| RR/7/438 | Referee's report by John Couch Adams, on a paper 'On the variations of the daily mean horizontal force of the earth's magnetism produced by the suns rotation and the moon's synodical and tropical revolutions' by John Allan Broun | 1876 |
| RR/9/185 | Referee's report by John Couch Adams, on a paper 'The principal cause of the large errors at present existing between the positions of the moon deduced from Hansen’s tables and observation: and the cause of an apparent increase in the secular acceleration in the moon’s mean motion required by Hansen’s tables, or of an apparent change in the time of the earth's rotation' by Edward James Stone | 15 May 1883 |
| RR/9/341 | Letter from John Couch Adams, on a paper 'On the luni-solar variations of magnetic declination and horizontal force at Bombay, and of declination at Trevandrum' by Charles Chambers to John William Strutt, Lord Rayleigh | 6 November 1886 |
| HS/1/3 | Letter, from John Couch Adams to Sir John Herschel, dated at St. John's College, Cambridge | 17 May 1848 |
| HS/1/9 | Letter, from John Couch Adams to Sir John Herschel, dated at Cambridge Observatory | 19 January 1866 |
| HS/1/1 | Letter, from John Couch Adams to Sir John Herschel, dated at St. John's College, Cambridge | 10 November 1847 |
| HS/1/8 | Letter, from John Couch Adams to Sir John Herschel, dated at St. John's College, Cambridge | 19 December 1851 |
| HS/1/5 | Letter, from Sir John Herschel to John Couch Adams, dated at Collingwood | 21 October 1848 |
| MC/5 | Volume 5 of miscellaneous correspondence regarding business matters, sent to the Royal Society | 1851-1858 |
| HS/1/7 | Letter, from John Couch Adams to Sir John Herschel, dated at St. John's College, Cambridge | 1 April 1851 |
| HS/1/2 | Letter, from John Couch Adams to Sir John Herschel, dated at St. John's College, Cambridge | 31 December 1847 |
| HS/1/6 | Letter, from John Couch Adams to Sir John Herschel, dated at St. John's College, Cambridge | 24 October 1848 |
| MS/769/1 | Letter from John Couch Adams, Observatory, Greenwich, to Walter White, Assistant Secretary, Royal Society | 6 November 1883 |
| MS/769/3 | Letter from John Couch Adams, Observatory, Cambridge, to Walter White, Assistant Secretary | 27 February 1884 |
| MS/769/4 | Letter from John Couch Adams, Observatory, Cambridge, to Walter White | 26 May 1884 |
| MS/769/2 | Letter from John Couch Adams, Observatory, Cambridge, to Walter White | 29 January 1884 |