How This Unlucky, Irritable, Disorganized Astronomer Was Thwarted by Uranus

Pierre Charles Le Monnier, born 300 years ago today, was a "notoriously disorganized" astronomer, according to science historian CM Linton. Though he was a brilliant wunderkind who made many landmark discoveries during his life, Le Monnier is now remembered as much for his blunders as his triumphs.

The most costly of these mistakes will be eminently relatable to anyone who has a terminally messy desk. Where most astronomers of the era carefully recorded their observations in logbooks, Le Monnier often wrote stuff down on loose leaflets that he left scattered around in random parts of his workspace.

"Such notes, unmethodically arranged, are as bad as no notes at all when astronomical work is concerned," said Victorian astronomer Sir Richard Gregory in his 1893 treatise Advanced Physiography. "By not arranging them decently and in order Le Monnier lost out on immortality."

Gregory is referring to the fact that Le Monnier made several observations of the planet Uranus before the prolific astronomer William Herschel pegged it as the seventh planet in our Solar System in 1781.

But though Le Monnier had been tracking Uranus much earlier than Herschel, he consistently miscategorized it as a star. The error was partly due to his lazy bookkeeping and partly due to the fact that he observed Uranus during one of the stationary points of its orbit, which was just plain bad luck. Perhaps the object would have been more obviously planetary to him if he had observed more of its orbit, but he missed out on that crucial information.

When Herschel announced the discovery, Le Monnier sifted through piles of unfiled notes with dread before realizing his mistake.

"Le Monnier examined his own records and found that he had seen Uranus nine times before its discovery without recognizing that it was not a star," said science author Mark Littman in the Planets Beyond.

There is some discrepancy over the number of recorded observations he was able to recover, but regardless, Le Monnier only officially published four of the notes because he was "so embarrassed" according to Littmann. "His reputation was seriously tarnished as a result," said Linton in From Eudoxus to Einstein: A History of Mathematical Astronomy.

Of course, Le Monnier still racked up a lot of important discoveries during his life, but nothing close to the amount of recognition that discovering one of the Solar System's planets would have afforded him.

Indeed, Herschel immediately became one of the most sought-after scientists of the era, having discovered the first new planet in thousands of years. King George III rewarded him with a swanky position as the Court Astronomer the following year, and he was also awarded with generous grants to build larger telescopes.

In France, the planet was informally known as Herschel before the name Uranus caught on, so Le Monnier was no doubt well aware of the historical weight of the discovery that had been right in front of his eyes.

There are

some reports that

Le Monnier was "naturally of a very irritable disposition," and he got into

some high-profile spats

with his patrons. One can only imagine that his missed connection with Uranus didn't soften his overall temperament. But though he may not have revelled in the fame bestowed to Herschel, Le Monnier can, at least, be considered the patron saint of the chronically disorganized among us. Now go clean your desk.