| Astronomy 101 - Modern Astr... Dec 23rd 2011, 11:08 Some people have called Tycho Brahe the Father of Modern Astronomy, but I tend to believe that title belongs to Galileo Galilei. However, Brahe did advance the science more than anyone in the past, simply by using his senses, rather than philosophy to study the sky. What Brahe began, his assistant, Johannes Kepler expanded upon. His Laws of Planetary Motion were a major building block in the foundation of modern astronomy. Galileo began the modern age of science, but others continued it. Here, in brief, are some of the other bright lights that helped bring Astronomy to its current place. - Edmund Halley (1656-1742) was a British Astronomer who was also a big fan of Sir Isaac Newton. After encouraging Newton to write his Principia, Halley then published it at his own expense. Not stopping to rest on the fame of another, he went on to calculate the orbits of comets, including the one named after him.
- Sir William Herschel (1738-1822), though born in Germany, was a British astronomer. He discovered Uranus in 1781 coined the word asteroids. He also catalogued about 2000 nebulae, discovered several satellites of Uranus and Saturn, studied the rotation of planets. Discovered and studied binary stars. He discovered two satellites each orbiting Uranus and Saturn. He studied the rotation period of many planets, the motion of double stars, and nebulae. He cataloged more than 800 double stars and contributed new information on the constitution of nebulae. Herschel was the first to propose that these nebulae were composed of stars. He is considered the founder of sidereal astronomy.
- Albert Einstein (1879-1955) was a German-born American physicist and Nobel laureate. He may be the most well-known scientist of the 20th century. In 1915, he developed his general theory of relativity, which states that the speed of light is constant and that the curvature of space and the passage of time are linked to gravity. Thinking the universe was unchanging, he inserted his "cosmological constant" into his calculations to make them fit his belief.
- Willem de Sitter: (1872 - 1934), a Dutch astronomer, removed Einstein's cosmological constant and used the theory of relativity to show that the universe may always be expanding.
- Georges-Henri Lemaitre: (1894 - 1966) was not only a Belgian astronomer, he was also a Jesuit priest. Discovering the writings of Russian mathematician, Alexander Friedmann, Lemaitre took his solution for an expanding universe and theorized that if the universe is expanding, if we follow it back to the starting point, then our universe began as a great "cosmic egg" which exploded and expanded outward. Lemaitre is called by some, the father of the Big Bang Theory.
- Edwin P. Hubble (1889-1953), American Astronomer. In the 1920s, Albert Einstein stated, "I have made my greatest blunder." This pronouncement came when Edwin Hubble demonstrated that the universe was not static and Einstein's cosmological constant was not necessary. Utilizing improved telescopic devices, he was also able to confirm that those "fuzzy" objects astronomers had seen for years were in fact other galaxies.
- Thomas Gold (1920 - 2004) is an American astronomer. Though it is generally believed that Gold's "Steady State" theory of the universe is incorrect, he has made many major contributions to our knowledge of the universe, including the nature of pulsars as rotating neutron stars, and the origin of planetary hydrocarbons.
That brings us into the twentieth century. There have been and are many other great brains in the field of astronomy, but it's time to get away from history for now. We'll meet some of these other astronomers throughout the rest of our lessons. Next lesson, let's look at numbers. Assignment Read more about Edmond Halley, Albert Einstein, and The Hubble Telescope. Don't forget the discussion Forum. Fourth Lesson > Big Numbers > Lesson 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10  | |
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