Papers

Scientists constantly face decisions about what lines of research to pursue. This Element introduces the philosophical debate about scientific pursuitworthiness. It explains how it can be rational to pursue a theory even if the theory is less well supported than its rivals, and it discusses existing philosophical frameworks for guiding pursuit decisions. The Element also develops a new perspective. Existing accounts focus predominantly on theories, while experiments are largely neglected. This is an important shortcoming. Theoretical promise depends on experimental promise, and experimental promise raises questions of its own. Drawing on the epistemology of experimentation, the Element advances an account of experimental pursuitworthiness. It is argued that such pursuitworthiness depends on experimental virtues like a clear signal and simplicity of design. Moreover, the kinds of uncertainty that constrain the assessment of scientific pursuits are examined. Finally, the Element highlights open questions in the philosophy of scientific pursuitworthiness.

In 1054 AD a daytime star appeared in the constellation of Taurus, for three weeks, and it was reported in various sources from Europe to China/Japan: it was one of the few documented galactic supernovae of the last two millenia. This paradigm has been established about sixty years ago, as the comprehension of the physics of supernovae progressed with enough observational data. The Gamma-ray bursts were discovered in the same period, but only in the past few years have their observations become daily and their distances have been fully understood as cosmological. After the explosion, the exponential decay of the luminosity in gamma-rays and X-rays has been followed with telescopes onboard dedicated satellites. Also the exponential decay of the afterglow's optical and radio frequencies have been observed with the largest optical and radio telescopes. Within the binary-driven hypernova framework, successful in explaining all the observed phases of the Gamma-ray bursts, the universal exponential decay can be extended to 1000 years after the burst, to account for the present values of Gamma and X-rays as well as optical and radio frequencies of the Crab Nebula. Both the daytime visibility of the burst, and the simultaneous radiation plagues appeared in Constantinople and Cairo is a strong evidence of the presence of Gamma-rays in the lower atmosphere, coming from the same source originating the Crab nebula. The association to the daytime visibility of that star and the following plague meets exactly the etymology of the word dis-aster, bad star.

Manchak and Weatherall (2018) formulate the black hole information paradox as a failure of predictability in black hole evaporation spacetimes, diagnosed by non-global hyperbolicity. I offer a strategy for resolving this paradox. I argue that failures of predictability in black hole evaporation are not well diagnosed by non-global hyperbolicity. I then consider two weakenings of global hyperbolicity: prediction and retrodiction friendliness, the failure of which could ground a new paradox. However, deidealized black hole evaporation models can be prediction and retrodiction friendly. Therefore, the information paradox cannot be based upon failures of global hyperbolicity, nor either retrodiction or prediction unfriendliness.

Previous published analyses of trinitite to determine the yield of the Trinity nuclear explosion used various estimates of the fraction of fission products that became incorporated in trinitite. Furthermore, these studies utilized nuclear data that has subsequently been revised. Utilizing a planar germanium detector, we observed gamma rays produced by the decays of both 137Cs and 239Pu from four samples of trinitite. From the observed 137Cs/239Pu ratios of and a simple analysis method based on current nuclear data and weapons debris studies, we find an average yield of 9.1+-4.5 kilotons from our four samples. While this result is substantially lower than the established total yield of 21 kilotons, it is in reasonable agreement that attributable to fissions in the 239Pu core alone.

The quantum model of the two-sentence liar paradox proposed by Aerts, Broekaert, and Smets is an early example of the use of quantum formalism to describe cognitive dynamics. Our reconstruction is primarily pedagogical in intent, but it also leads to a number of clarifications, and to some new observations, concerning the structure of the model. Rewriting the model in Dirac notation, we make explicit the distinction between truth values originating from a decision and from semantic inference, and show that the associated enlargement of the one-sentence state space corresponds to a factorization with respect to which the non-paradoxical configurations are separable while the genuine liar state is entangled. We also derive the Hamiltonian generating the four-state cyclic evolution, express it in compact operator form, and give the resulting transition probabilities in closed form. We emphasize that the liar cycle admits a unitarily equivalent representation in the four-dimensional truth-only space, where the unmeasured liar state is separable, so the dimensional enlargement is not required by the unitary part of the dynamics; it is required, however, by the measurement structure. The enlargement is also required by the dynamics as soon as revision processes are admitted, in which states with identical truth content but different origins have different successors, the origin degree of freedom then acting as a minimal form of cognitive memory. We conclude by discussing the possible relationship between the model and more general deliberative processes.

Appeals to typicality are common in physics, but it is often unclear what it means for a physical state to be typical relative to a probability measure, and correspondingly unclear what a law that appeals to typicality asserts. Here we consider how one might characterize physical typicality using ideas from the theory of algorithmic randomness. As a concrete example, we show how taking a physical state to be typical relative to a computable measure when it is Martin-Löf random allows one to formulate the distribution postulate in Bohmian mechanics as a statistical constraining law of the theory. Using a toy model, we show how this constraint guarantees the standard Born statistics for computable experimental protocols. Algorithmic Bohmian mechanics (aBM) thus illustrates how algorithmic randomness may be used to provide precise content to a statistical law.

I recently showed how objective Everettian probability can be defined over the records borne by an observer's later continuations, without unique actualization or additional premeasurement subjects \citep{Baxter2026}. Here I extend that model to all decoherent physical record states, including records that support no such continuation. The observer-indexed model is then a restriction of an exhaustive physical-record model.

The attribution of the condition div A + (1/c^2) dPhi/dt = 0 has been under discussion since 1938 as a question of priority between Ludvig Lorenz and Hendrik Lorentz. This work argues that the problem is of a different nature, and that the discussion does not close because it has never been specified what is being attributed. Drawing on the three versions of the 1867 paper and on six further primary sources, it is documented that three separable acts have been designated under a single name: the obtaining of the relation between potentials, its imposition as a restriction on the admissible potentials, and its denomination as a gauge. It is further documented that in none of the three versions of the 1867 paper does the word potential appear, that the magnetic field does not figure in it as a quantity of the theory, and that the vocabulary in which that paper is described today enters the literature after it was written. It is concluded that the disjunction between the two denominations, posed without specifying which of the three acts is being attributed, is ill formed.

In 1911 Einstein suggested that photons which pass close to the Sun are deflected by its effective mass which would apparently shift the positions of stars by up to one arcsecond, something that should be observable by astronomers during solar eclipses. Einstein`s ideas including the later doubling of the value due to relativistic space curvature met with enthusiastic responses from astronomers. The history of these efforts, their motivations and interactions with Einstein is presented here, beginning with the expedition that failed due to WWI of the young Erwin Freundlich in 1914 and ending with the unsuccessful Potsdam campaign to Öland (Sweden) in 1954. A newly found conference photograph from the first post-war meeting of the Astronomische Gesellschaft in 1921 shows Albert Einstein as a new member of the AG on the Telegraphenberg in Potsdam.

This work examines the physical and conceptual evolution of the light quantum from Planck's blackbody theory to the theoretical and experimental developments that led to the quantization of the electromagnetic field. The present study shows that the decisive transition occurred in Einstein's quantum theory of radiation (1916-1917). Absorption, stimulated emission, and spontaneous emission were formulated as elementary probabilistic mechanisms whose statistical balance alone reproduces the blackbody spectrum. In particular, spontaneous emission requires the emission of a light quantum, thereby implicitly proving its physical necessity before its theoretical status was clarified. At the same time, the already existing term photon began to acquire a stable usage following Lewis's 1926 proposal and became increasingly associated with Einstein's light quantum. By the mid-1920s, the central problem had shifted from whether light quanta were physically required to how radiation could be incorporated into the emerging quantum-mechanical formalism. This transition marks a key stage, illustrating how initial debates about the existence of light quanta gave way to their integration into a comprehensive theoretical structure. The resulting asymmetry between the novel quantum description of matter and the still-classical description of radiation, called into question by the phenomenon of spontaneous emission, identifies the physical problem that led to the quantization of the electromagnetic field.

Our main claim is that Bohr adopted a principle-theoretic approach to quantum mechanics in order to reconcile two principles: the distinction principle, which asserts the necessity of a clear epistemic distinction between a classical apparatus and a quantum system, and the non-separability principle, which asserts that the two systems are ontologically non-separable in any measurement process. The latter principle is a consequence of Bohr's argument that, during a measurement interaction, the quantum system and the measurement apparatus form a 'new kind of individuality'. To support our argument, we first demonstrate the overlooked fact that, according to Bohr, the measurement interaction is a physical, irreversible process and not merely an epistemic acquisition of new information. In this respect, quantum mechanics must be regarded not only as a universal theory, but also as revealing no non-arbitrary difference between a quantum realm and a classical realm; the distinction is purely pragmatic. The tension between the epistemic necessity to rely on a neatly distinguishable classical realm and the ontic non-separability of the quantum system and the classical apparatus inclined Bohr to refuse to provide a constructive account of the measurement process, such as that later proposed, for instance, by spontaneous dynamical reduction models.

In this paper, we do not try to solve the measurement problem, but rather to properly formulate it. One of the reasons why it still lacks a precise, agreed definition is that the problem may take very different aspects depending on the interpretation of quantum mechanics embraced. Inspired by the methodology of theory-independent results like Bell's theorem, we propose to identify the common root of the puzzle in an interpretation-independent way i.e. as a property of the empirical statistics only, before deriving its philosophical consequences. The key observation is that quantum matter can not be described by a Kolmogorovian probabilistic theory. Arguing that the Kolmogorov axioms of probability theory are the postulates of epistemic uncertainty leads us to reformulate the measurement problem as the impossibility to build an ontology independent of epistemology for quantum matter. Said differently, there exists no God's-eye view on quantum systems. Although it is meaningless to solve the measurement problem as defined in this way, insofar as it is a feature of the universe's statistics, such a formulation may on the other hand bring side benefits. In particular, we argue that it allows to: (i) shed a new light on the variety of interpretations; (ii) propose a fundamental reason why quantum mechanics and general relativity are so incompatible, not relying on purely mathematical or technical arguments; (iii) guide the quest for quantum gravity.

This paper discusses the metaphor, originating with Whittaker, according to which Maxwell's model of molecular vortices was the scaffolding by means of which the equations of electromagnetism were erected, removed afterwards without consequence for the building. It is argued here that the metaphor describes badly what happened, and it is shown that whoever upholds it today transcribes, within that same text, the quotations that belie it. The paper examines what was actually removed in 1865, which materials of the model still operate inside the equations under other names, and proposes in its place the figure of the template, taken from sheet-metal layout work. The discussion is situated with respect to the work of Daniel M. Siegel and Cameron Lazaroff-Puck, who maintain from the history of science the constitutive character of the model. It closes with a criterion for telling one case from the other.

The apparent incompatibility between foreknowledge and free will is traditionally formulated in terms of the implication of knowledge of a future event for the freedom of that event. This paper reexamines the problem using the notions of causal order and physical determination provided by modern physics. I consider measurements of two entangled particles at spacelike-separated events, where a measurement outcome is taken to be free if it is not determined by the previous history of the part of the universe accessible to it. Relativity allows the temporal order of the two measurements to be reversed between reference frames while preserving their causal independence. Quantum correlations nevertheless allow an observer at one measurement event to know the outcome at the other. I show that there is, therefore, a frame in which an observer possesses foreknowledge of a measurement outcome that remains free in this sense. The argument demonstrates that epistemic access to a future event need not be grounded in physical conditions that determine it.

We reformulate the relaxation problem in statistical mechanics by making explicit what are the operational objects subject to relaxation: the local time statistics of the recorded signal $Z(t)$. These local time statistics are simply the estimated histograms of observations $\{Z(t_i)\}_{i=1}^M$ performed at uniformly random times $\{t_i\}_{i=1}^M$ by a clockless observer. The subject of prediction is a belief about a future fresh out-of-sample reading of a measurement outcome whose distribution is inferred from the mathematical model believed to be true. For finite bounded systems of $N\ge 1$ degrees of freedom global irreversible relaxation of predictions can occur but special initial conditions exist. The form of the predictions depends on certain loss functions whose choice is up to the particular observer. Finally, entropy is given a learning interpretation as mutual information between the observer and the unknown past of the system under consideration and, in complete generality, its stationary value depends on the information available.

Quantum resonances and black-hole quasinormal modes (QNMs) are described by closely related mathematics: radiative boundary conditions, analytic continuation of Green functions or resolvents, poles on nonphysical sheets, and non-self-adjoint spectral representations. This article does not introduce that equivalence but reconstructs its genealogy. Nuclear resonance theory grew from radioactive decay, reaction cross sections, metastable compound states, and complex energies, whereas black-hole perturbation theory grew from spacetime stability and causal response. We place the two developments on a common chronology, from Sommerfeld's radiation condition and early nuclear-decay theory through Regge–Wheeler perturbations, Vishveshwara's 1968 dissertation and 1970 papers, Press's 1971 quasi-normal terminology, and the independent Aguilar–Balslev–Combes theory of analytic dilation, then follow their later mathematical reunification in scattering-resonance theory. Alongside the chronology, we give a working dictionary relating no-incoming and horizon-ingoing/infinity-outgoing conditions, pole energy and complex frequency, width and damping rate, residues and excitation factors, and nonresonant background with branch-cut and prompt contributions. The aim is to make the cross-disciplinary equivalence operational without flattening its history, and to distinguish mathematical equivalence from historical genealogy.

The 4th International Symposium on the History of Particle Physics spanned two decades, from approximately 1980 to 2000. In this opening keynote lecture, I survey developments in particle physics from the prehistory of the $J/\psi$ discovery to the early nineteen-eighties. I offer context for the contributions that follow in the symposium program.

In this essay I will make a non-exhaustive survey of the role of scientists, politicians, and the military in the development and use of the Bomb in the thirty years following the beginning of the United States Manhattan Project. I will be mainly focusing on facts or documents that have gradually fallen into oblivion, but that in my opinion are important to develop a critical view of the past responsibilities, and to consciously address the present dramatic situation of worldwide wars, that may yield again to the use of the Bomb.

Non-relativistic objective collapse theories have been remarkably successful in addressing the conceptual problems of standard quantum mechanics. Despite substantial efforts, the project of extending them to the relativistic domain remains burdened by significant conceptual objections and technical challenges, often taken to cast doubt on the viability of the program as a whole. On the conceptual side, relativistic collapse theories have been claimed to face challenges involving tension between instantaneous collapse and relativity, frame-dependence of property values and probabilities, the possibility of superluminal signaling and the failure of narratability. On the technical side, persistent infinities, difficulties in constructing fully covariant frameworks and the apparent need for non-standard fields have hindered the development of workable models. In this paper, we offer a systematic rebuttal of the conceptual objections and provide a structured account of the remaining technical challenges. We conclude that relativistic collapse theories do provide a promising route toward a fully relativistic quantum framework that overcomes the conceptual limitations of standard quantum theory.

QBists insist that theirs is a realist position while denying that the quantum formalism represents a mind-independent world. The insistence is hard to place. The realism debate is throughout a dispute about represented content, so a theory that denies standing in the representation relation appears not to take up a position within that debate at all. This paper examines the most developed attempt to make good on the QBist claim–David Glick's perspectival normative realism–and argues that it fails instructively. Glick seeks the ground of the Born rule's objectivity among states of affairs and construes an agent's perspective as a location within an already-constituted world; finding no state of affairs fit to bind every agent at once, he must book the ground as brute. Phenomenology supplies the third thing his picture lacks. A horizon is not a position within the world but the condition under which a world is given. Read as an agent's weighting–her curvature–of such a horizon, the quantum state is neither a defective description nor a brute posit, and the Born rule articulates the invariant lawfulness by which any sense confers a curvature at all.

The astronomical programme sponsored by the Saljuq Sultan Malikshah I in the late eleventh century occupies an important place in the history of Islamic astronomy. Umar Khayyam was a principal participant in this programme, which produced the Jalali or Maliki calendar and appears also to have resulted in a broader set of astronomical tables known as the Zij-i Malikshahi. A 100-star catalogue traditionally associated with these tables survives in the anonymous Arabic compendium Dustur al-munajjimin, preserved in the unique manuscript BnF Arabe 5968. This study distinguishes the catalogue from the Jalali calendar and from the lost or unidentified complete Zij-i Malikshahi, reconstructs its historical and manuscript context, and examines the provenance of BnF Arabe 5968. It presents a complete transcription of the catalogue from fols. 224r-225r and a new English translation made directly from the Arabic text, with B. A. Rosenfeld's 1961 Russian translation used as a control. The collation identifies several divergences, including a substantive correction to the longitude of entry 8, and clarifies the planetary temperament abbreviations. Rosenfeld and A. P. Yushkevich observed that 96 of the 100 stellar longitudes correspond to Ptolemaic values increased by about 14 degrees 26 minutes, while 87 latitudes agree with Ptolemy. These correspondences suggest systematic updating of inherited Ptolemaic data rather than 100 wholly independent observations, illustrating the combined roles of observation, computation, transmission, and adaptation in medieval Islamic astronomy.

We draw on 't Hooft's seminal formulation of the holographic principle to analyse the methodological and conceptual role of information in quantum gravity. We argue that, in 't Hooft's work and in later developments, information functions as a substantive guiding principle. We distinguish three aspects of this role: First, holographic bounds on the amount of information that can be stored in a region function as theory selection criteria that constrain viable quantum gravity theories. Second, holography functions as a principle of theoretical equivalence: the bulk and boundary theories must describe the same physical content, even though 't Hooft privileges a more fundamental, lower-dimensional, and potentially deterministic boundary description. Third, the distribution and encoding of information connect 't Hooft's proposals to contemporary work on bulk reconstruction, holographic quantum error correction, and ER=EPR, where emergent spacetime structure is tied to patterns of entanglement and redundancy. On the basis of these three roles, we argue that purely epistemic or Shannon-style conceptions of information are inadequate in this context: we instead outline a distinction between what we call maximal and intermediate conceptions that aim to capture the methodological and interpretative roles of information in holographic quantum gravity. We therefore suggest that, in the context of holography and quantum gravity, a more systematic philosophical treatment of the role of information as an interpretation-guiding principle would be desirable.

This paper re-examines the Dark Matter (DM) problem through the lens of physical principles. We first develop a functionalist account and taxonomy of principles. We propose to define principles in terms of their intended functions or purposes. Their argumentative force boils down to context-sensitive and often tentative reasons for believing them adequate for those purposes. In research contexts in which novel theories or models are sought which push the boundaries of knowledge into new domains, reliance on well-motivated principles as principal building blocks is a historically widespread, natural, and methodologically prudent research strategy—what we'll dub "principled inquiry". In a second step, we apply this methodological machinery to the DM problem. Through detailed analyses of four mainstream DM approaches—supersymmetric WIMPs, axions, sterile neutrinos, and primordial black holes—we substantiate four claims. (C1) The DM paradigm is formed by the framework of possibilities, circumscribed by a shared cluster of regulative and constitutive principles of gravitational and non-gravitational physics. (C2) Besides those common principles, the four DM models also depart from other principles of orthodox physics in distinct ways. (C3) They do so to different degrees—displaying different forms and extents of "minimal mutilation" with respect to some of the principles of established non-gravitational physics. (C4) The guidelines of principled inquiry clarify the sense in which the DM problem constitutes an ever-more disconcerting crisis: worries are growing that the principles on which DM researchers have routinely and rationally relied may have run out of heuristic steam. Pressure is mounting to "leave no stone unturned" (Bertone and Tait 2018): scientists ought to increasingly explore ideas that stray more radically from the cautious explorations of principled inquiry.

This essay develops a simple conditional argument for many-history ontologies from the fact that life exists. The question is not why our exact evolutionary sequence occurred, but why reality contains the broad class of life-bearing histories at all. If such histories are sufficiently rare, then a single-history ontology makes the existence of life surprising, while an ontology containing many histories can make it unsurprising. In the limiting case, life may be vanishingly unlikely in any one history while almost certain to occur somewhere if many histories are actualized. Everettian quantum mechanics is a natural candidate for this kind of ontology because its multiplicity is not introduced for anthropic purposes, but arises from taking universal unitary quantum mechanics seriously. The Fermi paradox is discussed as pressure against the claim that life is common within a single history.

Everettian quantum mechanics is often said to lack coherent probability because every possible measurement result occurs. If all of them exist globally, what is probability supposed to be a probability of? This paper defends an axiomatic answer: normalized Born measure is postulated as objective probability over the records borne by an observer's future continuations. Collapse interpretations likewise postulate the Born probabilities, but instead assign them to possible global outcomes. Neither theory derives the probabilities from its ontology. The contribution is an explicit record-level probability model that separates probabilities for future local records from certainty about their global existence. I use this model to answer objections to the axiomatic approach and argue that neither global selection nor a further theory of personal persistence is required. At the level of recorded results, the Everettian law supports the same predictions and empirical inferences as the collapse law, despite the theories' different ontologies.

Newtonian mechanics is usually written on a spacetime of fixed geometry. Here we build that geometry, introducing a propagator and a bilinear form only as the description demands. Within this reconstruction the Principle of Inertia emerges as a theorem rather than an independent postulate. Inertial motion is blind to the scale of the form and to the torsion the propagator defines, and that blindness is a geometric precursor of the universality of free fall, before gravity enters. Newton's Second Law is a compatibility between two derivatives along a curve. The force exceeds the mass times the lowered acceleration by an exact term, and the law survives arbitrary torsion. Requiring force-free motion to be inertial along curves parametrised by arc length restricts the torsion to be totally antisymmetric. The remaining torsion is a three-form which we postulate the particle carries along its worldline. Its contraction with the velocity annihilates that velocity, so the supplementary condition of spinning-particle mechanics holds identically, and we propose that contraction as a classical spin. The algebra is familiar from relativistic spin hydrodynamics; the assignment, to the best of our knowledge, has not been proposed elsewhere. Since inertial motion resolves neither the mass nor the spin, the predictive content lies in the transport law we postulate, which turns the spin against a parallel-transported frame at a rate fixed by the acceleration alone and by no coupling constant. That rate becomes a laboratory number only once the arc-length parameter is identified with a clock, which we leave open. The dynamics asks non-degeneracy of the form, so this spacetime is not Newton–Cartan's Galilean one, and gravitation lies outside the construction. We prove every mathematical result, make three constitutive postulates and one physical conjecture.

Africa has deep and diverse traditions of astronomical knowledge, ranging from archaeological astronomy, pharaonic stellar timekeeping, and manuscript astronomy in Timbuktu and the Sahel, to ecological seasonal astronomy in southern Africa and calendrical computation in the Ethiopian tradition. These multiple epistemic traditions form part of a long intellectual history that precedes and intersects with contemporary astronomy on the continent. In the context of this long-standing intellectual heritage, an important question arises regarding the contemporary circulation of African astronomical knowledge within the global scientific system. This study therefore examines where African astronomical knowledge is produced, validated, and circulated in modern scholarly communication. Using bibliometric data from the Web of Science Core Collection, our analysis investigates publication and citation patterns in the research area Astronomy and Astrophysics between 2000 and 2025, with particular attention to the publication venues of African scholars. The findings highlight a critical paradox: while African researchers are active contributors to global astronomical discovery, the intellectual capital generated through this work is largely stored, validated, and circulated through publication systems located outside the continent. This pattern reflects broader asymmetries within global scholarly communication, where dominant publishing infrastructures shape visibility, citation impact, and authority. By applying a decolonial lens to metrics such as citation impact and ownership, the paper calls for a critical reassessment of the academic practices that sustain epistemic coloniality. It concludes that achieving scientific equity requires a strategic shift in publication choices to build and fortify a sovereign African knowledge archive.

The discovery of radar echoes from meteor trains at Jodrell Bank in 1945 marked the beginning of a new era in meteor astronomy and laid the foundations for the subsequent development of radio astronomy. This paper examines the close relationship between Bernard Lovell's emerging research group at Jodrell Bank and the British Astronomical Association (BAA) during the formative years, 1946-1951. It explores the contributions of the individuals who connected these two communities. Particular attention is given to the lives and scientific careers of Michael Ovenden, Gerald Hawkins, John Clegg, John Davies, Victor Hughes and Mary Almond, all of whom were BAA members. Their later achievements demonstrate the remarkable talents of this generation of scientists, whose work extended across radio astronomy, planetary science, palaeomagnetism, archaeomagnetism and computer science.

Hermann Minkowski's original explanation of relativistic length contraction using a space-time diagram and conic section geometry of a standard hyperbola is reconstructed on the basis of unpublished manuscript notes dated to the spring of 1908. The manuscript notes likely reflect Minkowski's preparation of a lecture to physics and mathematics teachers. They reveal Minkowski as an educator as well as a promoter of a mathematization of the physical sciences. I also comment on his interpretation of Einstein's work and on the use of language in his popularization of mathematics.

Eleven comets were discovered by six New Zealanders from New Zealand shores. New Zealand's important geographical position south of the Equator is highlighted. This location allows observers to discover and observe comets that would be difficult to see from the Northern Hemisphere. The lives of these comet discoverers are explored, as well as the discovery circumstances and an analysis of the morphological changes of their comets. We find that numerous New Zealand observers made many observations of these comets, however, relatively few were included in international publications, this possibly being due to papers about them not being submitted to overseas journals. We also note an interesting trend in that the number of New Zealand newspaper articles relating to these comet discoveries plummeted after the 1946 discovery by Albert Jones. We speculate as to why this may have happened.