Percival Lowell

Percival Lowell was an American businessman, author, mathematician and astronomer, born in Boston in 1855, who fueled speculation that there were canals on Mars and furthered theories of a ninth planet within the Solar System. He founded the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, and began the effort that led to the discovery of Pluto 14 years after his death. A member of the Brahmin Lowell family, he graduated from Harvard College in 1876 with distinction in mathematics, ran a cotton mill for six years and in the 1880s travelled extensively in the Far East, serving as foreign secretary and counselor for a Korean diplomatic mission to the United States in 1883 and writing books on Japanese religion, psychology and behaviour.