| Urbain Le Verrier |
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Urbain Jean Joseph Le Verrier ( March 11 , 1811 – September 23 , 1877 ) was a French Mathematician who specialized in Celestial Mechanics . He worked at the Paris Observatory for most of his life. BIOGRAPHY Le Verrier was born in Saint-Lô , France. His most famous achievement is the discovery of 's observed Orbit and that predicted from the Laws of Kepler and Newton . At the same time, but unknown to each other, the same calculations were made by Adams . Le Verrier assisted Galle in locating the Planet (September 1846 ); which was found within 1° of its predicted location at a point in Aquarius . (There was, and to some extent still is, some controversy over the apportionment of credit for the discovery; see Discovery Of Neptune .) Perhaps galvanized by his discovery, Le Verrier proceeded to interpret the orbit of Mercury as influenced by another planet (tentatively named Vulcan ). This triggered a wave of false detections, which lasted until 1915 , when Einstein explained the anomalous motion with his Theory Of General Relativity . He won the Gold Medal Of The Royal Astronomical Society in 1868 and again in 1876 . He died in Paris , France . Crater s on the Moon and Mars , a Ring of Neptune , and the Asteroid 1997 Leverrier are named after him. |