Actually, it was not Bode but Johann Tietz who first proposed this formula, in 1772.
At that time there were only six known planets. In 1781, Friedrich Herschel
discovered Uranus, which fit nicely into this formula for n ¼ 6. No planet had
been discovered for n ¼ 3. Spurred on by Bode, an association of European astronomers
had been searching for the “missing” eighth planet for nearly 30 years. Piazzi
was not part of this association, but he did inform Bode of his unintended discovery.
Piazzi’s letter did not reach Bode until March 20. (Electronic mail was discovered
much later.) Bode suspected that Piazzi’s discovery might be the missing planet, but
there was insufficient data for determining its orbital elements by the methods then
available. It is a problem in nonlinear equations that Newton himself had declared
as being among the most difficult in mathematical astronomy. Nobody had solved
it and, as a result, Ceres was lost in space again.