Urbain Le Verrier biography
Date of birth : 1811-03-11
Date of death : 1877-09-23
Birthplace : Saint-Lô, France
Nationality : French
Category : Historian personalities
Last modified : 2011-06-02
Credited as : Mathematician, discovery of Neptune,
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Urbain Jean Joseph Le Verrier was a French astronomer and mathematician who analyzed the orbit of Uranus and accurately predicted the existence of another planet nearby. His prediction led directly to the discovery of Neptune in 1846. An English astronomer, John Couch Adams, calculated the same thing independently and earlier, but Leverrier's work was published first. Le Verrier is credited with coming up with the idea of daily weather reporting, and he also tried to prove the existence of another planet, Vulcan, near Mercury.
Le Verrier had a wife and children. He died in Paris, France and was buried in the Cimetière Montparnasse. A large stone celestial globe sits over his grave. He will be remembered by the phrase attributed to Arago: "the man who discovered a planet with the point of his pen."
