You might find some of these fun to learn about. We tend to simplify what really happened, but the real story greatly adds to the discovery. This is only a mere sample of things I have enjoyed reading about.
Which are right and which ain't?
1) Galileo, in support of his theory on falling object, dropped different sized balls from the Tower of Pisa to argue against the Aristotelian view that they would fall at the same rate.
2) Before the observations of Venus, Galileo’s greatest damaging discovery to Ptolemy’s geocentric model was his discovery of four moons “circulating” around Jupiter.
3) Galileo went to prison for promoting the idea that the Earth was not the center of the universe.
4) Bruno was burned at the stake for his Copernican views and support for life beyond our planet.
5) The church, Jesuits, refused to accept Galileo’s astronomical claims.
6) Hans Lipperhey invented the telescope.
7) Galileo never used his telescope to look directly at the Sun.
8)Galileo was the first to discover sunspots.
9) Galileo discovered that bodies fall at a distance as to the square of its fall time.
10) Hubble discovered that extragalactic nebulae (galaxies) have high redshifts.
11) Hubble discovered that the universe is expanding.
12) Hubble, while at Mt. Wilson, always supported the idea that the universe is expanding.
13) If observed through a neutral filter from space, the Sun is a yellowish star.
14) Father Secchi, father of astrophysics, had initially three types of stars based on the spectra. He put the Sun in the “yellow” type (Type II).
15) The hypothesized planet Vulcan was observed by more than one astronomer. [This is the small planet that orbited about half the distance between the Sun and Mercury to explain the anomaly found in Mercury’s orbital precession.] NYT declared doubters at this point were due to “professional jealousy. Vulcan exists.”
16) Galileo was offered a better deal (financially and title) by Cosimo Medici (Tuscany) than his offer from the government of Venice. This after he named the four moons the “Medicean stars”.
17) Herschel was given a stipend after naming his discovery of the 7th planet --- George (“Georgium Sidus” – George’s star). [See #16
]
18) It took 30 years to reach an agreement to name the planet Uranus, as proposed by the German astronomers.
19) The extremely important CMBR (Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation) discovery (1964) was predicted almost 20 years earlier.
20) Fraunhofer was the first to discover absorption lines in any spectra.
Which are right and which ain't?
1) Galileo, in support of his theory on falling object, dropped different sized balls from the Tower of Pisa to argue against the Aristotelian view that they would fall at the same rate.
2) Before the observations of Venus, Galileo’s greatest damaging discovery to Ptolemy’s geocentric model was his discovery of four moons “circulating” around Jupiter.
3) Galileo went to prison for promoting the idea that the Earth was not the center of the universe.
4) Bruno was burned at the stake for his Copernican views and support for life beyond our planet.
5) The church, Jesuits, refused to accept Galileo’s astronomical claims.
6) Hans Lipperhey invented the telescope.
7) Galileo never used his telescope to look directly at the Sun.
8)Galileo was the first to discover sunspots.
9) Galileo discovered that bodies fall at a distance as to the square of its fall time.
10) Hubble discovered that extragalactic nebulae (galaxies) have high redshifts.
11) Hubble discovered that the universe is expanding.
12) Hubble, while at Mt. Wilson, always supported the idea that the universe is expanding.
13) If observed through a neutral filter from space, the Sun is a yellowish star.
14) Father Secchi, father of astrophysics, had initially three types of stars based on the spectra. He put the Sun in the “yellow” type (Type II).
15) The hypothesized planet Vulcan was observed by more than one astronomer. [This is the small planet that orbited about half the distance between the Sun and Mercury to explain the anomaly found in Mercury’s orbital precession.] NYT declared doubters at this point were due to “professional jealousy. Vulcan exists.”
16) Galileo was offered a better deal (financially and title) by Cosimo Medici (Tuscany) than his offer from the government of Venice. This after he named the four moons the “Medicean stars”.
17) Herschel was given a stipend after naming his discovery of the 7th planet --- George (“Georgium Sidus” – George’s star). [See #16
18) It took 30 years to reach an agreement to name the planet Uranus, as proposed by the German astronomers.
19) The extremely important CMBR (Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation) discovery (1964) was predicted almost 20 years earlier.
20) Fraunhofer was the first to discover absorption lines in any spectra.