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Forensic Astronomer Solves Walt Whitman Mystery
New Scientist has a piece on the uncommon art of forensic astronomy. Texas State University physicist Donald Olson has solved the mystery of Walt Whitman's meteor poem, thanks to clues found in an 1860 painting by Frederic Church. "Before we were done we had collected 300 records of observations [of the event]. I think this may be the most observed, and most documented, single meteor event in history. From the Great Lakes to New England, every town that had a newspaper wrote about that meteor. ... So we've got one of America's greatest landscape artists, Frederic Church, watching the meteor from Catskill, and we've got one of America's greatest poets, Walt Whitman, watching the meteor from New York City." The field of forensic astronomy may have gotten its start more than 30 years before, when art historian Roberta Olson argued convincingly that the lifelike comet in Giotto's "Adoration of the Magi" in Padua, Italy, in fact depicted Halley's Comet in its visitation of 1301.
Isn't this more astronomical historiography? That is, looking back at historical record to decipher the details of an event through commonalities and extrapolation?
I thought forensic science was a bit more dry.
As the commentor above mentioned, this field seems to be a little ill-defined. When I read the article the first academic division I thought of was Archaeoastronomy. Wikipedia's definition is servicable:
For anyone interested, Dr. Anthony Aveni has written a lot of interesting stuff in the field.
In those days, the little town newspapers used boilerplate from the larger city newspapers and only added in a few local articles. So the fact that the meteor was reported in many newspapers means diddly squat.
Those were the days of the steam driven internet on rails - news travelled a little slower, but it was no different in concept from today where lots of papers and blogs quote the same text.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
Correct me if I am mistaken, but I believe it was this poem:
---
Year of Meteors [1859-60]
---
by Walt Whitman
(1819-1892)
---
Year of meteors! brooding year!
I would bind in words retrospective some of your deeds and signs,
I would sing your contest for the 19th Presidentiad,
I would sing how an old man, tall, with white hair, mounted the
scaffold in Virginia,
(I was at hand, silent I stood with teeth shut close, I watch'd,
I stood very near you old man when cool and indifferent, but trembling
with age and your unheal'd wounds you mounted the scaffold;)
I would sing in my copious song your census returns of the States,
The tables of population and products, I would sing of your ships
and their cargoes,
The proud black ships of Manhattan arriving, some fill'd with
immigrants, some from the isthmus with cargoes of gold,
Songs thereof would I sing, to all that hitherward comes would welcome give,
And you would I sing, fair stripling! welcome to you from me, young
prince of England!
(Remember you surging Manhattan's crowds as you pass'd with your
cortege of nobles?
There in the crowds stood I, and singled you out with attachment;)
Nor forget I to sing of the wonder, the ship as she swam up my bay,
Well-shaped and stately the Great Eastern swam up my bay, she was
600 feet long,
Her moving swiftly surrounded by myriads of small craft I forget not
to sing;
Nor the comet that came unannounced out of the north flaring in heaven,
Nor the strange huge meteor-procession dazzling and clear shooting
over our heads,
(A moment, a moment long it sail'd its balls of unearthly light over
our heads,
Then departed, dropt in the night, and was gone;)
Of such, and fitful as they, I sing--with gleams from them would
gleam and patch these chants,
Your chants, O year all mottled with evil and good--year of forebodings!
Year of comets and meteors transient and strange--lo! even here one
equally transient and strange!
As I flit through you hastily, soon to fall and be gone, what is this chant,
What am I myself but one of your meteors?
We should start a new Slashdot and return control to the geeks. It actually wouldn't be that hard to get some users to
Maybe I'm biased, given my name, but wouldn't Halley's own sleuthing of the comet itself be a prime candidate for "the field of forensic astronomy" getting a start? It's not like he named this thing that appeared once-- he discovered that several historical sightings of similar objects were actually the same object on a periodic return.
[
I'd count dating historical observations of solar eclipses as forensic astronomy, and I think was done well before 30 years ago. Here are some examples.
There are also celestial alignments of pyramids and stone circles - although it would have to be a stellar alignment to count, as the sun doesn't change its path over historical times.
Quattuor res in hoc mundo sanctae sunt: libri, liberi, libertas et liberalitas.
[kicking Walt Whitman's tombstone]
Homer: Damn you, Walt Whitman! I-hate-you-Walt-freaking-Whitman! "Leaves of Grass", my ass!
Halley's comment.
YEAR of meteors! brooding year!
I would bind in words retrospective, some of your deeds and signs;
I would sing your contest for the 19th Presidentiad;
I would sing how an old man, tall, with white hair, mounted the scaffold in Virginia;
(I was at hand—silent I stood, with teeth shut close—I watch’d;
I stood very near you, old man, when cool and indifferent, but trembling with age and your unheal’d wounds, you mounted the scaffold;)
I am curious: does anyone know who the old man was, why he was being hung? Was it a lynching?
The poem's title includes the year 1860, and specifically mentions a "meteor procession" and this astronomy fella figured out it was the Meteor Procession of 1860? How did he know?!
If light takes 4 years to get here from the nearest star, then isn't all stellar astronomy forensic--looking into the past?
Seems like we're talking cultural forensics.
adj. Pertaining to, connected with, or used in courts of law; suitable or analogous to pleadings in court.
It comes from the Latin word "forum," as in the Roman Forum, where public debates were held and legal proceedings were carried out. With CSI and such, it seems people think "forensics" means something like "finding and analyzing evidence," but unless that evidence is meant for a courtroom, it's not "forensics."
What this person is doing is historical research, pure and simple. It's what a historian does. If I discover the subject of a historical painting, am I doing "forensic art"? If I discover the identity of a battle that is referenced in a historical poem, am I doing "forensic warfare"? No. I'm doing history -- art history, military history, whatever.
Many people think that historians just sit around telling stories about the past, perhaps digging through documents and books in archives. But there's a lot of technical stuff going on all the time -- you can figure out where a document might have originated by watermarks in the paper, many historians are pretty adept at paleography and handwriting analysis to determine the authenticity of a manuscript, analysis of ink color, paper size, pen type, and such can all narrow down the possible geographic origin, etc. Just because you're doing something dealing with science or using scientific methods doesn't mean it isn't still history.
Honestly, I'm a little suspicious whenever I see some historical argument labeled as "forensics," which usually implies either that the author is a historian trying to sound hip or that some random scientist (perhaps with forensics training) has jumped into doing historical research, often with little background in history. Either way, it can sometimes be a way to sidestep peer review and get published in the mainstream media.
Anyhow, these people are helping to write the history of astronomy, perhaps as it impacted artists, writers, and the public at large, but it's still just history. Unless someone's going to sue someone else over it, though, it's not "forensic."