A suggestion had been made to me looking toward a professorship in some Western college, but after due consideration, I declined to consider the matter.
Simon Newcomb

Aerial flight is one of that class of problems with which men will never have to cope.
Simon Newcomb

As the existence of a corps of professors of mathematics is peculiar to our navy, as well as an apparent, perhaps a real, anomaly, some account of it may be of interest.
Simon Newcomb

As years passed away I have formed the habit of looking back upon that former self as upon another person, the remembrance of whose emotions has been a solace in adversity and added zest to the enjoyment of prosperity.
Simon Newcomb

Astronomers are greatly disappointed when, having traveled halfway around the world to see an eclipse, clouds prevent a sight of it; and yet a sense of relief accompanies the disappointment.
Simon Newcomb

Flight by machines heavier than air is unpractical and insignificant, if not utterly impossible.
Simon Newcomb

I finally reached the conclusion that mathematics was the study I was best fitted to follow, though I did not clearly see in what way I should turn the subject to account.
Simon Newcomb

I had not yet gotten into the world of light. But I felt as one who, standing outside, could knock against the wall and hear an answering knock from within.
Simon Newcomb

If my impressions are correct, our educational planing mill cuts down all the knots of genius, and reduces the best of the men who go through it to much the same standard.
Simon Newcomb

In 1858 I received the degree of D. S. from the Lawrence Scientific School, and thereafter remained on the rolls of the university as a resident graduate.
Simon Newcomb


In 1860 a total eclipse of the sun was visible in British America.
Simon Newcomb

In October, 1865, occurred what was, in my eyes, the greatest event in the history of the observatory. The new transit circle arrived from Berlin in its boxes.
Simon Newcomb

My father followed, during most of his life, the precarious occupation of a country school teacher.
Simon Newcomb

My father was the most rational and the most dispassionate of men.
Simon Newcomb

My first undertaking in the way of scientific experiment was in the field of economics and psychology.
Simon Newcomb

One hardly knows where, in the history of science, to look for an important movement that had its effective start in so pure and simple an accident as that which led to the building of the great Washington telescope, and went on to the discovery of the satellites of Mars.
Simon Newcomb

Quite likely the twentieth century is destined to see the natural forces which will enable us to fly from continent to continent with a speed far exceeding that of a bird.
Simon Newcomb

So far as the economic condition of society and the general mode of living and thinking were concerned, I might claim to have lived in the time of the American Revolution.
Simon Newcomb

The beginning of 1856 found me teaching in the family of a planter named Bryan, residing in Prince George County, Md., some fifteen or twenty miles from Washington.
Simon Newcomb

The reports of the eclipse parties not only described the scientific observations in great detail, but also the travels and experiences, and were sometimes marked by a piquancy not common in official documents.
Simon Newcomb