John Fulton
From earliest times, human beings have regarded the sky
with fascination. The passage of time on a daily basis and the
coming and going of the annual seasons are marked by the movements
of sun, stars and planets. Sailors and wanderers in the desert used
the stars to find their bearings. When human societies adopted
agriculture as a way of life, predicting seasonal change became
crucial to decisions made as to when to sow seed and when to
harvest crops. It seems likely therefore, that the first systematic
study of the night sky, was carried out by scholars and priests in
the ancient civilisations of North Africa and the Near East more
than four thousand years ago. The philosophers of ancient Greece
were preoccupied by the relationship between the earth and the
heavenly bodies. The model of the universe which emerged from their
observations and speculation influenced European thinking up until
the 17th Century. The astronomer and geographer, Ptolemy (Claudius
Ptolomeus) who lived in Alexandria in Egypt in the 2nd Century A.D.
gave this theoretical system its final form. Since that time it has
been known as the Ptolomaic System. The earth was believed to be
fixed at the centre of the universe surrounded by eight concentric
shells. The sun and planets were considered to be attached to the
first seven of these shells and their positions relative to one
another explained by a series of complicated movement termed
'epicycles'. The eighth shell held the stars whose position is
fixed in relation to each other.
In 1543, the part Polish, part German astronomer, Nicholas
Copernicus, published a book in which he revealed a revolutionary
theory which forms the basis of our understanding of the universe
to this day. Rather than our own earth being viewed as the fixed
point around which the planets and moon rearrange themselves on a
daily and seasonal basis, he suggested that the sun should fulfil
this central role. A picture of the universe emerged in which the
planets take the form of spheres (or balls) travelling in circles
around a spherical sun. The earth rotates on its own axis and in
doing so exposes half of its surface to sunlight at any one time
giving rise to the distinction between night and day. At the same
time, the earth traces a circular path around the sun on a journey
which occupies a period of a year. In doing so, the earth takes its
place alongside its near neighbours, Mercury, Venus and Mars,
voyaging around the central point of the sun against a background
of unmoving stars.
New ideas such as that of Copernicus (the 'heliocentric'
model of the universe) met with fierce opposition from religious
authorities in the 16th and 17th Centuries. By the 18th Century,
all aspects of the world were being subject to enthusiastic enquiry
and there was a thirst for new ideas. Nowadays, the presentation of
science to the public in accessible form occupies many hours of
television air-time. The first exponents of popular science,
however, came on the scene during the 18th Century . They made a
living by entertaining and informing audiences using experimental
devices such as the prism in order demonstrate the laws governing
light and colour. The vacuum jar was used to make apparent the
influence of the atmosphere on flames and on living creatures. A
complex mechanical arrangement was used to explain the workings of
the universe within which our own planet moved. This was termed an
'orrery'. Metal spheres representing the planets and sun were
linked by means of cogs and gear wheels. When these were set in
motion they simulated the relative movements of the planets around
the sun. By placing a light source in the central position occupied
by the sun, all of the observable effects of planetary movement in
relation to solar illumination could be
demonstrated.
In the year 1800, in the small village of Fenwick in
Ayrshire, John Fulton was born. He followed his father in his trade
as a cobbler. Fulton was typical of a breed of technical innovators
whose imagination and skill drove forward the Industrial
Revolution. Largely self-taught, he studied botany, learned several
foreign languages and constructed a 'velocipede' or early bicycle.
He also experimented with the production of coal gas. Astronomy
held a particular fascination for him. He caught the attention of a
wider public when he successfully assembled an orrery - a working
model of the solar system. This was purchased by the Philosophical
Society of Kilmarnock and exhibited in towns around Scotland and
England. The creation of the orrery won him a medal awarded by the
Scottish Society of Arts along with a prize of ten sovereigns. His
technical skills brought him employment in London where he worked
for a firm which produced scientific instruments for the King,
William IV. Ill health forced him to abandon his professional
activities and return to Fenwick where he died in
1853.