John Flamsteed actually just wanted to observe the heavens. It was his goal to put together a catalogue of the stars that was better and more comprehensive than anything that had been produced before. He did not live to see the publication of his life's work, however, and one of the people responsible for this was Isaac Newton.
“Newton very ungratefully set himself to hinder the work by several tricks and artifices…gave me all the trouble he could,” Flamsteed wrote to a friend in October 1715, adding in despair, “how unworthily, nay, treacherously, I am dealt with by Sir I. Newton.”1 And yet the relationship between Newton and Flamsteed had actually gotten off to a good start. But Newton's ego meant that conflict was unavoidable in the end. The great scientist was too sure of himself and his abilities and could simply not admit to having made mistakes. And the one who had to suffer was a man who wasn't actually responsible for the dispute and who had indeed—at least in the beginning—wanted to help Newton.
Isaac Newton's monumental work Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica laid the foundation for modern natural sciences (see chapter 5). Published in 1687, the book not only contained a mathematical analysis of gravitational force, but was also in principle a completely new explanation of the world. Above all, Newton demonstrated in the book that the same laws apply here on Earth as in the heavens—that projectiles such as cannon balls follow the same rules as planets, comets, and other celestial bodies. In order to be able to demonstrate this, however, he required concrete data and observations, and that's where John Flamsteed came in, a man who spent each night studying the sky from Greenwich Observatory. But though the working relationship between the astronomer and the physicist started off on a relatively harmonious basis, it later developed into a bitter feud, sparked and fanned by Newton's inconsiderate behavior.
In March 1675, a royal decree declared Flamsteed “the King's Astronomical Observator,” making him the first “Astronomer Royal.” Today, this is an honorary title, held by a completely normal scientist with no special duties attached. Flamsteed's responsibilities, on the other hand, were clearly defined: he was supposed to observe the stars in the heavens and chart their positions as accurately as possible, in order to provide a solution to the problem of determining longitude at sea.
From today's perspective, it seems odd to appoint an astronomer especially for such a particular project. The English king didn't stop there, however—he even founded a separate observatory for the purpose:2 a lot of effort for something that any smartphone today can do in a few seconds. Wherever you are in the world, your phone's GPS function will tell you your exact location and give the longitude and latitude to within a few meters. But in the seventeenth century, there were neither smartphones nor GPS—just loads of ships that were unable to determine their location, which meant that they got lost on the oceans and their crews died of hunger or drowned when the ships sank. For a country whose military and economic power was as dependent on safe and effective seafaring as England, this state of affairs was simply intolerable.
LOOKING FOR LONGITUDE
Determining latitude was no longer really a problem at the time. Latitude is the measurement of how far north or south of the equator we are. To find it out, it's sufficient just to observe the sun, for example. The sun rises in the east, sets in the west and reaches its zenith every day in the south. You learn this at primary school today, and even back then it wasn't a great mystery. People also knew that, throughout the year, the sun didn't always climb as high in the sky. It remains lower in the winter than in the summer and the amount of time that it shines each day is also dependent on the time of year. There are two days in the year, however, when the sun spends the same amount of time above the horizon as it does below it, and these are called equinoxes. These days mark the beginning of spring and autumn respectively and, from an astronomical point of view, are when the sun is exactly perpendicular to the equator. Or, to put it another way, if we were standing directly at the equator on these days, we would see the sun directly above our heads when it reached its zenith.
But only at the equator! If we are further north or south, our angle of vision shifts and the sun is no longer directly above our heads, reaching its peak slightly lower in the sky. Where this culmination (as it is called in astronomy) occurs, depends entirely on the latitude. You simply have to observe the highest point of the sun on an equinox and can then calculate how far your current position is from the equator. Should you not want to wait for an equinox, it is in principle possible on any other day, too. The calculations become a little more complicated, since you have to take into account factors like the inclination of the earth's axis, but with a certain amount of mathematical skill and a few simple observation instruments, determining your latitude is no problem. And if you want to calculate your position at night, when there is no sun to be seen, the whole thing works just as well with the stars. That was true even back then.3
Determining longitude, on the other hand, seemed a practically impossible task. Two things made it extremely complicated: the fact that there is no natural point of reference for longitude and the difficulty in determining the time. Latitude tells us how far north or south of the equator we are. Longitude, however, tells us how far east or west we are from the…um…yes, from where? That was the first problem: what does our measurement of longitude refer back to? We have no choice but to draw a more or less arbitrary line from north to south and to define this line as the point of reference for longitude. Today, we use the line that runs from the North Pole exactly through Greenwich Observatory and on to the South Pole. And it is of course no coincidence that this prime meridian runs precisely through the place where John Flamsteed worked. For if you want to measure longitude, you need to know exactly what time it is and, at least back then, only the astronomers knew this.
There were clocks of a kind in the seventeenth century, but they were sundials, of the kind that the young Isaac Newton had constructed as a child. There were also hourglasses and water clocks and even simple mechanical clockworks, which could be found in some churches. But there were no accurate clocks. You could count yourself lucky to be able to measure time to within an hour, though the somewhat more accurate pendulum clocks that had just been invented in the second half of the seventeenth century were an exception. But they were heavy and unwieldy and certainly couldn't be used on ships rolling about on the high seas.
But it is necessary to know the time in order to calculate longitude. Why this is the case can again be best explained using the sun. Let's imagine John Flamsteed, after a long night of astronomical observation, stepping outside the door of his observatory in Greenwich. The clock there shows six o'clock in the morning, and he sees the sun just rising above the horizon.
Of course, the sun doesn't really move—it just appears to do so because the earth rotates around its own axis, turning from west to east. So when Flamsteed sees the sun rising on the eastern horizon, what he really sees is how the part of the earth where Greenwich Observatory is located is in the process of rotating out of the shadow and toward the sunlight. Behind him, in the west, it is still dark. For the captain of a ship that is just crossing the Atlantic from America toward England, for instance, it is still the middle of the night. The earth still has to rotate a bit more before the captain too can see the sun on the horizon and a new day can begin for his crew.
Some six hours later in Greenwich, the sun has reached its highest point in the sky. It is now noon, and John Flamsteed will probably be unaware of this, since he will be fast asleep in bed (as active astronomers often are during the day). The captain in the North Atlantic probably can't afford to take a daytime snooze, but will also note by observing the sun that it isn't yet midday where he is, since the sun is still climbing in the sky. In his location, west of Greenwich, the earth still has to rotate a little before the sun has reached its peak there, too.
Today, we're used to there being “time zones,” so that the time is the same within a certain country, or at least large areas of it. But these zones are purely arbitrary and have nothing to do with any astronomic reality. The so-called “solar noon” is not when the clock shows exactly twelve o'clock, but is instead the point in time when the sun has reached its zenith. This occurs at different times in different places, which means that the local time (or “solar time” as it is called in astronomy) is also different everywhere.
When John Flamsteed and the captain in the North Atlantic observe the position of the sun, they arrive at different results, since one of them is further west than the other and the sun is higher in the sky for one of them than for the other. In other words, the solar noon occurs at different times for each of them. And if the captain knew what time Flamsteed's clock was showing, he could use this to calculate his position. He can see how high in the sky the sun is, and also how far it is until it reaches its highest point. He knows how long this will take and he knows what time the clock at Flamsteed's location in Greenwich is showing, where the sun has already reached its highest point. And he can use this difference to calculate exactly how far west of Greenwich he is. The meridian that runs through Greenwich from the North Pole to the South Pole would be the zero point of his measurement, the so-called “prime meridian.” In order to achieve his goal—finding out how far east or west of this reference line he currently is—the captain would simply have to do a few calculations.
This distance from the prime meridian is measured in degrees, with a complete circuit around the earth being 360 degrees. The captain also knows that the earth rotates once around its axis in twenty-four hours.4 Hopefully, he will be up to the task of dividing 360 degrees by twenty-four hours and arriving at fifteen. The speed of the earth's rotation is therefore fifteen degrees per hour and so, if the sun in Greenwich has reached its highest point exactly an hour earlier than in the North Atlantic, this must mean that the ship is exactly fifteen degrees west of Greenwich.
The captain could see all of this just by taking a glance at a clock showing him what time it is in Greenwich. But this isn't possible, however, since such a clock doesn't yet exist. Back in those days, a different method was needed, and Flamsteed's aim was to provide this by creating a catalogue of the stars’ positions that was as accurate as possible, thereby hoping to find in the heavens the equivalent of the clock that did not yet exist on Earth.
It would be perfect for such a celestial clock if there was an event that could be observed everywhere in the world—or at least almost everywhere—and about which one could be completely certain when it occurred. A solar eclipse, for example. One could use the eclipse to calculate on what day and at what local time it could be seen from Greenwich and then relay this information to the captain before his ship departs. When the eclipse takes place, the captain could make a note of the local time at his location, as he can himself determine by observing the position of the sun. Now he need only ascertain the difference between the local time and the previously calculated time when the solar eclipse can be seen from Greenwich and can thus calculate his position from this difference. Such a method can be used, but it isn't practical. After all, people want to be able to determine their position at all times, not only when a solar eclipse just happens to be taking place. Something is needed that is visible more often. Like the moon, for example.
NEWTON IGNORES THE CELESTIAL CLOCK AND COMMON DECENCY
And this is where John Flamsteed and Isaac Newton encounter one another again, with unhappy consequences for Flamsteed. It was his job to develop a method by which the moon could be used as part of a cosmic clock that was visible everywhere, whereby the moon is the clock's hand and the stars are the numbers showing the time. Every night, the moon traverses the sky, passing the stars as it does so. If we know the path of the moon and the positions of the stars, we can also calculate when the moon finds itself near certain stars. The captain would then take a thick book with him on his voyage, with all of these different positions listed in it. He would observe the moon and work out how far it is from a particular star. He could then look up the local time for Greenwich previously calculated for this particular constellation and compare it with his own local time.
The astronomer John Flamsteed measures the positions of the stars and the physicist Isaac Newton calculates the trajectory of the moon using his theory of gravity. It sounds like it should have been a match made in heaven, if only Isaac Newton hadn't been such a complete egoist.
Between 1694 and 1696, the two of them worked together quite harmoniously, but Newton failed to achieve conclusive success with his work on lunar theory. After moving to the Royal Mint, he was occupied by other things and put the collaboration on ice. But when he was named president of the Royal Society in 1703, he returned to his study of the heavens.
He planned to write a new edition of the Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, to include a comprehensive mathematical study of the moon's motion. For this, he needed new observation data and he intended to get these from Flamsteed. The two men met at Greenwich Observatory in April 1704. Naturally, Flamsteed was in principle equally interested in finding a practical way of implementing the lunar-distances method. After all, it was precisely for this purpose that his observatory had been built. However, he disliked Newton's approach. Flamsteed intended to release a multivolume publication that would provide a suitable framework for his decades of observations. His aim was to begin with an extensive description of the instruments and methods he had used, followed by a catalogue listing thousands of star positions, as well as his observations of the moon, the planets, various comets, and more, plus a summary of the star catalogues already in existence, stretching back to ancient times. The book, which he planned to call “Historia Coelestis Britannica,” would be his life's work.
Isaac Newton couldn't care less about any of that. He was only interested in the information about the moon and the planets, and everything else was superfluous for his new edition. And if he had no need of it, then he saw no reason why anybody else should waste time on it. He had no interest in or sympathy for Flamsteed's ideas or career. He was solely interested in completing his own work and demanded that Flamsteed should assume the subordinate role, doing exactly what Newton wanted, namely providing the information that Newton needed and not making him wait for it because of some other scientific undertakings.
In order to get what he wanted, Newton started off in a cajoling tone. In a letter to Flamsteed, he wrote that the two of them would become famous if Flamsteed would provide the required observations to help him, Newton, with the implementation of the lunar-distances method. Flamsteed wasn't convinced. He wrote to an acquaintance that Newton was behaving in a “hasty, artificial, unkind, arrogant” manner, with Newton providing evidence of this arrogance in a further letter to Flamsteed: “I consider this theory to be so complex and the theory of gravitation so necessary for its understanding that I am convinced that it can never be perfected by somebody who does not understand the theory of gravitation as well as I, or better than I.”5
Newton was fully convinced that he alone could come up with a theory for the motion of the moon and that Flamsteed was therefore obliged to provide him with his findings. But Flamsteed continued to refuse to cooperate. Before publishing his painstakingly gathered observations, he wanted first to carefully evaluate and present them. Added to which he had already had a bad experience when providing Newton with information. The previous time they had worked together, he had only given Newton his observation data on the condition that it wouldn't be passed on to others. So what did Newton do? He brazenly sent the information to a colleague, without even mentioning that Flamsteed was the originator. It's quite understandable that the latter was upset about this; today, few scientists would have any qualms about calling Newton exactly what he was: an asshole. Especially since he himself had always been aggressive and offended if he thought that somebody was using his work without suitable acknowledgment.
NEWTON PILES ON THE PRESSURE
Flamsteed certainly had no intention of letting Newton dictate when and how he should publish his findings. Newton, on the other hand, was determined not to go without the data. If Flamsteed refused to cooperate willingly, then he had to be forced to do so. Once again, Newton used the influence that he had thanks to his niece, Catherine Barton, and her relationship with Baron Halifax, the queen's chancellor, and managed to obtain an audience with Prince George, Queen Anne's husband, who ordered that Flamsteed's findings should be published as quickly as possible, even providing funds for this.
Flamsteed could hardly go against a royal edict. But he didn't give up his plans for his life's work. In order to speed things up, he wanted to employ two assistants to help him with the onerous calculations that were required to turn the observation data into a useful catalogue and applied to Newton for the necessary funding. Newton agreed to this, but demanded that the assistants should work exclusively on the data for the moon and the planets. The star catalogue, so important for Flamsteed, was of no interest to Newton. Flamsteed, however, simply told his assistants to work on the stars data, but when Newton learned this, he immediately refused to provide the payment.
This dispute seems childish, and in a sense, it was. If Newton had simply let Flamsteed get on with his work, he would have obtained the information he needed, sooner or later. But he didn't want to wait. Unlike John Flamsteed, Newton wasn't really interested in solving the navigation problem and simply wanted to write an improved version of his Principia. For this, he needed to use his theory of gravitation, in order to be able to describe and predict the motion of the moon. With the help of his findings about the forces of attraction between the heavenly bodies, this shouldn't have been a problem. Or at least that's what Newton thought at the time; today, we know that such a task was a step too far even for a genius like him. It is indeed not that difficult to work out the gravitational pull between two celestial bodies. Newton was able to do this with his theory. The moon, however, is not only influenced by the earth's gravitational pull but also by the sun's. How strong the earth's influence on the moon is depends on the distance between them, and this is constantly changing, because the earth, in its turn, is influenced by the sun's gravitational pull. Newton found no exact solution for this complex problem and we know today that he was unable to do so. Such a problem involving three bodies cannot be solved exactly in a mathematical way; one can only approximately predict the movement of the heavenly bodies, with suitably complicated methods, and Newton was not aware of these methods back then. His theory of lunar motion was therefore correspondingly inaccurate.
He did not consider himself responsible for this, however, and put the blame squarely on Flamsteed, whose observation data he claimed were too imprecise to work sensibly with. He was convinced that Flamsteed was in possession of much more precise data but was deliberately hiding this from him, and so Newton made an aggressive attempt to force the publication of this data. Flamsteed, for his part, was keeping nothing under wraps and simply wanted first to complete his observations of the sky. He wanted to chart as many stars as he could, mathematically process all of his findings, and produce a complete catalogue of the heavens—in order to solve the problem of determining longitude and to provide future astronomers with a clear and reliable basis for their own work.
But Newton didn't let up and continued to demand the data concerning the moon. A look at the correspondence between the two gives a particularly good picture of their strained relationship. Newton starts by thanking Flamsteed for some solar tables that he had received from the astronomer, but then, in the very next sentence, begins to grumble: “These and almost all your communications will be useless to me unless you can propose some practicable way or other of supplying me with Observations.” Mentioning Flamsteed's weak health, he then gets straight down to what he is really concerned with: “I will therefore once more propose it to you to send me your naked observations [of the moon] and leave it to me to get her places calculated from them.” At the end, Newton becomes truculent: “If you like this proposal, then pray send me first your observations for the year 1692, and I will get them calculated, and send you a copy of the calculated places. But if you like it not, then I desire you would propose some other practicable method of supplying me with observations; or else let me know plainly that I must be content to lose all the time and pains I have hitherto taken about the moon's theory.”6
A few days later, Newton writes to Flamsteed once more to remind him that he had previously assisted him in other matters, such as the calculations for the motion of Jupiter's moons, and he takes care to point out that this “cost me above two months’ hard labour.” He says that he would never have taken this trouble if Flamsteed hadn't begged him to help, and also if he hadn't expected to receive help in return.
Flamsteed was determined not simply to bow to Newton's demands, however, and just gave him a few older observations and introductory texts for his planned work. He reasoned that it was okay for Newton to publish these and he himself would meanwhile have time to finish the rest of the catalogue as he saw fit. But Newton wanted all of the data. The two men came to a compromise: as a sign of trust, Flamsteed gave Newton a sealed envelope containing all of his observations so far. While the first part of the catalogue was being printed, he could continue his work and complete the data. These would then be exchanged for the incomplete data in the sealed envelope and Newton could then publish the finished catalogue.
After a long dispute, the publication of Flamsteed's data finally began under Newton's supervision. The astronomer was by no means pleased about this. He learned, for example, that Newton was paying the printer an incredible amount of money for the publication of the catalogue—more than one pound per page, while Flamsteed himself was getting no payment at all, despite only earning one hundred pounds a year as the Astronomer Royal (not enough to cover his living costs, which is why he was forced to have a second job as a country parish priest). By way of comparison, Newton, as an official of the Royal Mint, made at least 1,500 pounds per year at the time. Flamsteed complained vehemently about this situation in a letter: “’Tis very hard, ’tis extremely unjust, that all imaginable care should be taken to secure a certain profit to a bookseller, and his partners, out of my pains, and none taken to secure me the re-imbursement of my large expenses in carrying on my work above 30 years.”7
For a time, Flamsteed's circumstances seemed to improve. When Prince George died in 1708, the astronomer considered the royal edict to be defunct and ignored Newton's demands from then on. There was little Newton could do about this to begin with, though he did at least ensure that Flamsteed was excluded from the Royal Society (for the ostensible reason that he hadn't paid his membership fee on time).
THE WORST KIND OF BOSS
Two years later, however, Newton obtained an edict from Queen Anne herself and, on top of this, managed to get himself a post as a kind of supervisor for Greenwich Observatory. Isaac Newton had thereby become John Flamsteed's boss—and he now let his mask slip fully. In letters, he more or less accused the astronomer of treason for not releasing the data: “You are therefore desired either to send the rest of your catalogue to Dr. Arbuthnot or at least to send him the observations which are wanting to complete it, that the press may proceed. And if instead thereof you propose any thing else or make any excuses or unnecessary delays it will be taken for an indirect refusal to comply with her Majesty's order. Your speedy & direct answer & compliance is expected.”8 He also opened Flamsteed's sealed envelope and started publishing the—incomplete—data contained therein, leaving Flamsteed shocked to see how his life's work was made available to the public in such a careless and fragmented way.9
Newton and his colleagues had messed around at will in Flamsteed's catalogue, without having consulted him. An extract from a letter that Flamsteed wrote to John Arbuthnot shows just how outraged he was. Arbuthnot was a natural scientist, like Newton, and the doctor to Prince George, and he was integral to Newton obtaining the royal edict to force the publication of the data. Arbuthnot said that Flamsteed shouldn't complain, since Newton and his colleagues had simply wished to improve the astronomer's work. In his reply, Flamsteed doesn't mince his words: “I have now spent 35 years in composeing & Work of my Catalogue…I have endured long and painfull distempers by my night watches & Day Labours, I have spent a large sum of Money above my appointment, out of my own Estate to complete my Catalogue and finish my Astronomical works under my hands: do not tease me with banter by telling me these alterations are made to please me when you are sensible nothing can be more displeasing nor injurious, then to be told so.”10
Flamsteed terminated all collaboration with Newton. He announced that he would publish his data himself, at his own expense, and certainly better than Newton had done. Newton, meanwhile, refused to accept this and summoned Flamsteed to question him once more about data on the moon that he had supposedly withheld. Their conversation culminated in insults.11 In 1712, it finally happened: the catalogue that Newton had stolen from Flamsteed was published without the latter's involvement with the title “Historia Coelestis.” In his foreword, Newton dishes it out one last time, accusing the astronomer of only having worked for himself and, on top of that, of having provided poor-quality data that required lengthy corrections.
Newton was now in a position to publish the new edition of his Principia, including a new theory of lunar motion. Before doing so, however, he carefully erased every indication contained in the first edition of the contribution that Flamsteed had made with his observations. It didn't help him, though—his lunar theory remained inaccurate, too inaccurate at least to be used for the lunar-distances method. It was only those who came after him who succeeded: in 1753, the German astronomer Tobias Mayer and the Frenchman Nicolas-Louis de Lacaille managed to predict the motion of the moon so accurately that it was indeed possible to use this to measure one's position at sea. By then, however, this was no longer completely necessary, since not long afterward, the clockmaker John Harrison made clocks that were compact, robust, and accurate enough to be used at sea. Nevertheless, the work carried out by Flamsteed and the other astronomers was not in vain. To begin with, the new clocks were too expensive for many sailors and it was in any case always good to have an alternative. Right up until the second half of the nineteenth century, therefore, the lunar-distances method continued to be used to navigate at sea.
For Flamsteed himself, the story had something akin to a happy ending. Queen Anne died in 1714, and Newton lost his influence at the royal court. Now Flamsteed's voice was heard and he actually managed to have the unsold copies of Newton's catalogue taken off the market. With a great sense of satisfaction, he burnt them in the observatory garden and continued with the publication of his life's work, though he died five years later before he could finish the final volume, a task reserved for his widow and two of his assistants, who completed the catalogue at their own expense. In 1725, the Historia Coelestis Britannica was finally published and turned out to be exactly what Flamsteed had always wanted it to be and what even Newton could not prevent him from producing: the best catalogue of stars in existence at the time and a work that would ensure that Flamsteed's name and achievements would not be forgotten even today.
So many astronomers referred to Flamsteed's catalogue in the centuries that followed that Greenwich Observatory and the meridian running through it was officially and internationally recognized in 1884 as the prime meridian for the standardized measurement of time and location. The original part of the observatory in Greenwich is now called Flamsteed House and contains a museum that pays suitable tribute to the astronomer's life and work.
THE FINE LINE BETWEEN PERSISTENCE AND HUBRIS
In his dispute with John Flamsteed, Isaac Newton revealed his most unpleasant side—vengeful, small-minded, vindictive, selfish, and so sure of himself that he sought the cause for all problems in others rather than himself. It would thus seem abundantly clear that Newton could never be a role model for a modern scientific career and could only ever set a bad example.
But things are not as simple as that. Of course, his enormous ego would cause just as many problems today as it did then—probably even more. But criticizing the work of others is a fundamental part of modern scientific methods. Research results are only taken seriously on a wider level when they have undergone a process of evaluation, in which colleagues scrutinize the methods and results involved as closely as possible. Those who aren't prepared to go along with this are not really in a position to take active involvement in the modern scientific world. Ideally, though, self-appraisal should come before criticism from others. Prior to going public with one's scientific work, one should first consider any possible ways in which one might have made mistakes. Simply blaming other people for problems, as Newton did, is by no means the answer.
Newton was unable to develop a satisfactory theory of lunar motion, but it never occurred to him that the reason for this might be found in his own methods. Instead, overestimating his own brilliance, he blamed John Flamsteed and the supposed flaws in his data. Had he focused more closely and, above all, more critically on his own work, and had he welcomed public criticism and differences of opinion with his colleagues, then he might perhaps have succeeded after all in developing the new mathematical methods that were necessary to come up with a practical theory of lunar motion.
From today's perspective, on the other hand, what is more understandable is that Newton wanted at all costs to have John Flamsteed's astronomical observations made public. If we set aside the somewhat mean motives that caused Newton's extremely ruthless approach, we must recognize that Flamsteed was the astronomer royal and not an amateur scientist (even if he did pay for practically all of his instruments out of his own pocket). Newton was therefore at least partly justified in claiming that the data weren't really Flamsteed's property and demanding their publication. In the world of research today, this is an even more pressing issue: basic research such as astronomical studies is almost exclusively funded by public money and so data gained from this research should also be publicly available. The researchers are fully aware of this, but, like Flamsteed back then, they aren't always happy about it.
A good example of this is the controversy that developed in 2014 around the Rosetta mission to the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Rosetta was a project run by the European Space Agency (ESA), a body funded from the national budgets of its member states. In other words, it was taxpayers’ money that allowed the mission to be carried out. The public did indeed follow the mission with interest; it was after all the first flight of its kind to a comet and the first landing on the surface of a comet, and people expected fantastic pictures and findings from the mission. Nevertheless, pictures of the comet and its surface were released only sparingly and after a long delay, with most of the photos and data being kept back or made available for use only by the scientists involved.
This situation resembled the conflict between Newton and Flamsteed. Just as Newton had demanded the immediate release of Flamsteed's observation data, space fans demanded the publication of Rosetta's pictures. And just as Flamsteed had refused Newton's request, because he first wanted to process his findings himself as he saw fit, the ESA and the research institutes involved in the Rosetta mission insisted on first evaluating the findings themselves. Both sides had justifiable arguments; the scientists involved in the Rosetta mission had, after all, spent decades working on the space probe and the various instruments. When the work finally paid off and produced new scientific results, it was natural that the scientists should first want to work with these themselves. The possibility of “fame” wasn't even a deciding factor here, as it might have been in the case of Newton and Flamsteed. Specialist publications are the currency of modern research. The more articles one publishes in scientific journals, the greater one's chances of a decent career. The scientists involved in the Rosetta mission would have considered themselves cheated out of such prospects by the premature publication of their data in much the same way as Flamsteed feared for his life's work.
The opposing argument, however, is equally valid: it is a public project, financed by public money, and basic research in particular needs the public as a lobby. The findings belong to everyone and everyone should be able to work with them. Knowledge mustn't be hidden away; the more people who have access to it, the greater the likelihood that major discoveries can be made. Newton was convinced that he was far better suited to working with Flamsteed's data than Flamsteed himself. And even if this wasn't necessarily true in that case, the general principle is not wrong. Who can say for sure that the Rosetta scientists could gain the best results from the mission's data?
At least in this particular case, a compromise was finally reached. The ESA hadn't planned to keep the data permanently locked away in any case. It merely wanted its own scientists to have priority access for a while, in line with international practice. It was nevertheless decided to publish at least some of the current pictures, so that the public could also immediately benefit from the mission's findings.
Newton's egoism and inflated view of himself shouldn't serve as a guiding principle for today's scientists. But in terms of free access to research data, his obstinacy sets a good example, to a certain extent.12 Although Newton himself would probably have been extremely surprised to serve as an advocate for an open data initiative, as the following chapters will show.