The Dynamics of an Asteroid

The Dynamics of an Asteroidis afictional bookbyProfessor James Moriarty,the implacable foe ofSherlock Holmes.The only mention of it inArthur Conan Doyle's original Holmes stories is inThe Valley of Fear(written in 1914, but set in 1888) when Holmes says of Moriarty:^[1]

Is he not the celebrated author ofThe Dynamics of an Asteroid,a book which ascends to such rarefied heights of pure mathematics that it is said that there was no man in the scientific press capable of criticizing it?

Participants in the "Sherlockian game",whereSherlock Holmes fanselaborate on elements within Doyle's stories, have suggested other details aboutThe Dynamics of an Asteroid.

Related real works[edit]

In 1809,Carl Friedrich Gausswrote a ground-breaking treatise^[2]on the dynamics of an asteroid (Ceres). However,Gauss's methodwas understood immediately and is still used today.^[3]

Two decades beforeArthur Conan Doyle's writing, the Canadian-American dynamic astronomerSimon Newcombhad published a series of books analyzing motions of planets in the solar system.^[4]The notoriously spiteful Newcomb could have been an inspiration for Professor Moriarty.^[5]

An example of mathematics too abstruse to be criticized is theletters of Srinivasa Ramanujan,sent to several mathematicians at theUniversity of Cambridgein 1913.^[6]Only one of these mathematicians,G. H. Hardy,even recognized their merit. Despite being experts in the branches of mathematics used, he andJ. E. Littlewoodadded that many of them "defeated me completely; I had never seen anything in the least like them before." Holmes only states that "it issaid"(emphasis added) that no one in the scientific press was capable of criticizing Moriarty's work; he stops short of recognizing the claim as indisputably accurate.

Similarly, when it was jocularly suggested toArthur Eddingtonin 1919 that he was one of only three people in the world who understoodAlbert Einstein'stheory of relativity,Eddington quipped that he could not think who the third person was.^[7]

Discussion of possible book contents[edit]

Doyle provided no indication of the contents ofDynamicsother than its title. Speculation about its contents published by later authors includes:

"The Ultimate Crime",short story byIsaac Asimov,inMore Tales of the Black Widowers,^[8]and republished inSherlock Holmes through Time and Space.^[9]
"The Dynamics of an Asteroid", short story byRobert Bloch,The Baker Street Journal,1953, and also found inThe Game is Afoot.^[10]
"The Adventure of the Russian Grave", a short story byWilliam BartonandMichael Capobianco,collected inSherlock Holmes in Orbit.^[11]
In the novelSpider-Man:The Revenge of theSinister Six,byAdam-Troy Castro,a veiled reference is made to Moriarty and hisDynamics.Here the work is said to still be the authority on orbital bombardment.
PhysicistAlejandro Jenkinsin 2013 suggestedchaos theory,an esoteric branch of mathematics whose association with asteroid dynamics was not appreciated by real-world mathematicians until the work ofHenri Poincaréin 1890.^[12]^[13]^[14]
Simon P. NortonandAlain Gorielyhave each suggested that the book might have been Moriarty's submission to the 1887 celestial mechanics contest of KingOscar IIof Sweden (which was won byHenri Poincaré.)^[15]^[16]

Related references in media[edit]

In "His Last Vow",the final episode of series 3 of the BBC television seriesSherlock,Sherlock's mother, M.L. Holmes, is shown to have written a lengthy textbook with the titleThe Dynamics of Combustion,a reference to this book.
In "Henny Penny the Sky Is Falling", the 100th episode of the CBS television seriesElementary,the plot evolves around a fictional paper with the titleMiscalculating Near-Earth Asteroids and the Threat to Human Existence.
The pastiche novelProfessor Moriarty: The Hound of the D'Urbervillesbyfilm criticandhorrornovelistKim Newmanincludes a chapter parodying both "The Adventure of the Red-Headed League"andH. G. Wells'snovelThe War of the Worlds,in which an arrogant former student of Moriarty's named Nevil Airey-Stent publicly rubbishesThe Dynamics of an Asteroidto prove that it is indeed susceptible to criticism, prompting an enraged Moriarty to orchestrate an elaborate plan to drive Stent insane by convincing him that he has been contacted by visitors from the planetMars.
InFate/Grand Order,Moriarty's Noble Phantasm is calledThe Dynamics of an Asteroid,where he launches a barrage of bullets and lasers from his weapon, ending with him saying the name of his Noble Phantasm. During the Shinjuku Pseudo-Singularity, his goal is to destroy the Earth following the theory developed in this book using the asteroid101955 Bennuas the "bullet", and the abilities of the Phantom Spirit ofDer Freischützto guarantee it will destroy the Earth.

References[edit]

^ Doyle, Arthur Conan(1929).The Complete Sherlock Holmes Long Stories.London, UK: Murray. p. 409.ISBN 978-0-7195-0356-6.
^ Gauss, C.F.(1809).Theoria motus corporum coelestium in sectionibus conicis solem ambientium.Hamburg, Germany: Friedrich Perthes and I.H. Besser – via Google Books.
^ Teets, Donald; Whitehead, Karen (April 1999). "The discovery of Ceres: How Gauss became famous".Mathematics Magazine.72(2): 83–93.doi:10.1080/0025570X.1999.11996710.JSTOR 2690592.
^ Marsden, B. (1981). "Newcomb, Simon". In Gillespie, C.C. (ed.).Dictionary of Scientific Biography.Vol. 10. New York, NY: Charles Screibner's Sons. pp. 33–36.ISBN 0-684-16970-3.
^ Schaefer, B.E. (1993)."Sherlock Holmes and some astronomical connections".Journal of the British Astronomical Association.103(1): 30–34.Bibcode:1993JBAA..103...30S.
^ Kanigel, R. (1991).The Man Who Knew Infinity: A life of the genius Ramanujan.Scribner. p. 168.ISBN 978-0-671-75061-9.
^Chandrasekhar, S.(1976). "Verifying the Theory of Relativity".Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London.30(2): 255.ISSN 0035-9149.JSTOR 531756.
^ Asimov, I. (1976).More Tales of the Black Widowers.Doubleday.ISBN 978-0-385-11176-8.
^ Asimov, I.; Waugh, C.G. (1985).Sherlock Holmes through Time and Space.UK: Severn House. pp. 339–355.ISBN 978-0-312-94400-1.
^ Kaye, Marvin, ed. (1994).The Game is Afoot.USA: St Martin's Press. pp.488–493.ISBN 978-0-312-11797-9.
^ Resnick, Mike; Greenberg, Martin H., eds. (1997).Sherlock Holmes in Orbit.Fine Communications.ISBN 978-0-886-77636-7.
^ Jenkins, Alejandro (2013). "On the title of Moriarty's'Dynamics of an asteroid'".arXiv:1302.5855[physics.pop-ph].
^ Poincaré, Jules Henri(1890)."Sur le problème des trois corps et les équations de la dynamique. Divergence des séries de M. Lindstedt".Acta Mathematica.13(1–2): 1–270.doi:10.1007/BF02392506.
^ Diacu, Florin; Holmes, Philip (1996).Celestial Encounters: The origins of chaos and stability.Princeton University Press.
^"Sherlock Holmes and the Three-Body Problem".Mathematics Today.Institute of Mathematics & its applications. February 2014.CiteSeerX10.1.1.672.4223.
^Alain Goriely and Derek E. Moulton (April 2012)."The Mathematics Behind Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows"(PDF).SIAM News.Vol. 45, no. 3. Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics.

External links[edit]

List of many referencestoDynamics,as well as other works of Moriarty, Holmes, and others.

[1] Doyle, Arthur Conan(1929).The Complete Sherlock Holmes Long Stories.London, UK: Murray. p. 409.ISBN 978-0-7195-0356-6.

[2] Gauss, C.F.(1809).Theoria motus corporum coelestium in sectionibus conicis solem ambientium.Hamburg, Germany: Friedrich Perthes and I.H. Besser – via Google Books.

[3] Teets, Donald; Whitehead, Karen (April 1999). "The discovery of Ceres: How Gauss became famous".Mathematics Magazine.72(2): 83–93.doi:10.1080/0025570X.1999.11996710.JSTOR 2690592.

[4] Marsden, B. (1981). "Newcomb, Simon". In Gillespie, C.C. (ed.).Dictionary of Scientific Biography.Vol. 10. New York, NY: Charles Screibner's Sons. pp. 33–36.ISBN 0-684-16970-3.

[5] Schaefer, B.E. (1993)."Sherlock Holmes and some astronomical connections".Journal of the British Astronomical Association.103(1): 30–34.Bibcode:1993JBAA..103...30S.

[6] Kanigel, R. (1991).The Man Who Knew Infinity: A life of the genius Ramanujan.Scribner. p. 168.ISBN 978-0-671-75061-9.

[7] Chandrasekhar, S.(1976). "Verifying the Theory of Relativity".Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London.30(2): 255.ISSN 0035-9149.JSTOR 531756.

[8] Asimov, I. (1976).More Tales of the Black Widowers.Doubleday.ISBN 978-0-385-11176-8.

[9] Asimov, I.; Waugh, C.G. (1985).Sherlock Holmes through Time and Space.UK: Severn House. pp. 339–355.ISBN 978-0-312-94400-1.

[10] Kaye, Marvin, ed. (1994).The Game is Afoot.USA: St Martin's Press. pp.488–493.ISBN 978-0-312-11797-9.

[11] Resnick, Mike; Greenberg, Martin H., eds. (1997).Sherlock Holmes in Orbit.Fine Communications.ISBN 978-0-886-77636-7.

[12] Jenkins, Alejandro (2013). "On the title of Moriarty's'Dynamics of an asteroid'".arXiv:1302.5855[physics.pop-ph].

[13] Poincaré, Jules Henri(1890)."Sur le problème des trois corps et les équations de la dynamique. Divergence des séries de M. Lindstedt".Acta Mathematica.13(1–2): 1–270.doi:10.1007/BF02392506.

[14] Diacu, Florin; Holmes, Philip (1996).Celestial Encounters: The origins of chaos and stability.Princeton University Press.

[15] "Sherlock Holmes and the Three-Body Problem".Mathematics Today.Institute of Mathematics & its applications. February 2014.CiteSeerX10.1.1.672.4223.

[16] Alain Goriely and Derek E. Moulton (April 2012)."The Mathematics Behind Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows"(PDF).SIAM News.Vol. 45, no. 3. Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics.

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]

[6]

[7]

[8]

[9]

[10]

[11]

[12]

[13]

[14]

[15]

[16]

v t e Arthur Conan Doyle'sSherlock Holmes
Canon Adaptations Pastiches Popular culture
Novels	A Study in Scarlet(1887) The Sign of the Four(1890) The Hound of the Baskervilles(1902) The Valley of Fear(1915)
Story collections	The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes(1892) The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes(1894) The Return of Sherlock Holmes(1905) His Last Bow(1917) The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes(1927)
Characters	Sherlock Holmes Dr. Watson Professor Moriarty Inspector Lestrade Mycroft Holmes Mrs. Hudson Irene Adler Colonel Moran Baker Street Irregulars Minor characters
Uncollected stories	"The Field Bazaar"(1896) "The Story of the Lost Special"(1898) "How Watson Learned the Trick"(1924)
Universe	221B Baker Street Baritsu Diogenes Club The Dynamics of an Asteroid Reichenbach Falls A Treatise on the Binomial Theorem
Studies	Sherlockian game Holmesian studies The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes From Holmes to Sherlock The Great Detective Naked Is the Best Disguise
Related	Sherlock Holmes fandom Sherlockiana Sherlock Holmes Museum The Sherlock Holmes The Baker Street Irregulars The Baker Street Journal The Bootmakers of Toronto Sidney Paget The Strand Magazine Undershaw
Category