Simon Newcomb, astronomer and personality

摘要

We did not mention in our book that some have suggested Newcomb as the “intentional prototype for Arthur Conan Doyle’s arch-villain Professor James Moriarty” or as the “learn’d astronomer”in Walt Whitman’s famous “When I heard the Learn’d Astronomer,” because we found only speculations1 but no credible evidence that either claim is true. In fact, several scientists have been suggested as possible models for Professor Moriarty, among them Carl Friedrich Gauss. But the model that Doyle seems to imply in The Valley of Fear2 is the London archcriminal of the 18th century, Jonathan Wild. Why would Doyle choose as his prototype for Moriarty a relatively remote American astronomer rather than Wild, the locally well-known British villain and criminal?