• Date: 1935
  • Sculptor: Frederick MacMonnies
  • Medium & size: Bronze bust.
  • Location: Hall of Fame, Bronx Community College, 2155 University Avenue, Bronx.

Frederick MacMonnies, Simon Newcomb, 1935. Hall of Fame of Great Americans, Bronx. Photo copyright © 2019 Dianne L. Durante

Newcomb’s career highlights

In the late 19th century, Newcomb (3/12/1835-7/11/1909) was one of America’s best-known and most vocal scientists.

  • Largely self-taught until he entered Harvard in his early 20s (B.S. 1858)
  • In astronomy, revised standard tables for astronomical calculations; improved measurements of the movements of the moon and planets
  • Published the textbook Principles of Political Economy, 1885, in the footsteps of classical political economics, with his own views on the relationship of the dollar to commodities, and a mathematical equation for the circulation of money
  • In 1892, chaired the mathematics subcommittee of the National Educational Association’s “Committee of Ten,” which helped reform secondary-school curricula

Favorite Newcomb quotes

  • If my impressions are correct, our educational planing mill cuts down all the knots of genius, and reduces the best of the men who go through it to much the same standard.
  • Flight by machines heavier than air is unpractical and insignificant, if not utterly impossible.
  • Quite likely the twentieth century is destined to see the natural forces which will enable us to fly from continent to continent with a speed far exceeding that of a bird.
  • I had not yet gotten into the world of light. But I felt as one who, standing outside, could knock against the wall and hear an answering knock from within.

More

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