Other
Scientific paper
Aug 1996
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1996m%26ps...31..545m&link_type=abstract
Meteoritics, vol. 31, pages 545-588.
Other
6
Scientific paper
In 1794 Ernst F. F. Chladni published a 63-page book Uber den Ursprung der von Pallas gefundenen und anderer ihr anlicher Eisenmassen und uber einige damit in Verbindung stehende Naturerscheinungen in which he proposed that meteor-stones and iron masses enter the atmosphere from cosmic space and form fireballs as they plunge to Earth. These ideas violated two strongly held contemporary beliefs: 1) fragments of rock and metal do not fall from the sky, and 2) no small bodies exist in space beyond the Moon. From the beginning, Chladni was severely criticised for basing his hypotheses on historical eyewitness reports of falls which others regarded as folk tales, and for taking gross liberties with the laws of physics. Ten years later the study of fallen stones and irons was established as a valid field of investigation. Today, some scholars credit Chladni with founding meteoritics as a science; others regard his contributions as scarcely worthy of mention. Writings by his contemporaries suggest that Chladni's book alone would not have led to changes of prevailing theories; thus, he narrowly escaped the fate of those scientists who propose valid hypotheses prematurely. However, between 1794 and 1798 four falls of stones were witnessed and widely publicized. There followed a series of epoch-making analyses of fallen stones and "native irons" by the chemist, Edward C. Howard, and the mineralogist, Jacques-Louis de Bournon. They showed that all the stones were much alike in texture and composition but significantly different from the Earth's known crustal rocks. Of primary importance was Howard's discovery of nickel in the irons and the metal grains of the stones. This linked the two as belonging to the same natural phenomenon. The chemical results, published in February, 1802, persuaded leading scientists in England, France, and Germany that bodies fall from the sky. Within a few months chemists in France reported similar results and a new field of study was inaugurated internationally--although opposition lingered on until April,1803, when nearly 3,000 stones fell at L'Aigle in Normandy and transformed the last skeptics into believers. Chladni immediately received full credit for his hypothesis of falls, but decades passed before his linking of falling bodies with fireballs received general acceptance. His hypothesis of their origin met with strong resistance from those who argued that stones formed within the Earth's atmosphere or were ejected by lunar volcanoes. After 1860 when both of these hypotheses were abandoned, there followed a century of debate between proponents of an interstellar vs a planetary origin. Not until the 1950s did conclusive evidence of their elliptical orbits establish meteorite parent bodies as members of the solar system. Thus, nearly 200 years passed before the questions of origin that Chladni raised finally were resolved.
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