Featured
Alexander Graham Bell was heading for a dead end when a broken component showed him the way.
In 1875, Alexander Graham Bell, a Scotsman working with deaf children in Boston, MA, had rigged up a complex apparatus to transmit sound by electric current. As his assistant Thomas Watson recalled, all was disappointment until one day a tiny contact jammed.
Thomas Wright offers his readers a way of thinking about the enormous distances involved in any description of the solar system.
As an astronomer, Thomas Wright was particularly struck by the sheer size of the universe, “the secret Depths of Infinity, and the wonderful hidden Truths of this vast Ocean of Beings”. He often found that others, though fascinated by the solar system, had no conception of the distances involved, so he came up with this homely illustration.
Though some other sciences may seem to destroy it, astronomy restores a sense of religious awe.
Astronomer Thomas Wright approached his subject not only with passion but also with reverence. In a preface to his collection of nine ‘Letters’, in which he discussed fifteen years of observations, he told his unnamed correspondent that in common with many heroes of science and literature, he had found his religious belief deepened by studying the stars.
William Herschel showed that variations in the brightness of the sun were causing climate change, but hardly anyone believed him.
In 1782, astronomer William Herschel set himself to examine a theory that the brightness of stars varied over time. There was no agreed classification for brightness, and no comprehensive record of observations, but it all had to do with a question that to Herschel was of the very first importance: whether the sun’s brightness also varies, and whether this has had any effect on earth’s climate.
When Joseph Paxton, then just twenty-three, came to Chatsworth as Head Gardener he wasted no time getting settled in.
Joseph Paxton, one of Victorian Britain’s most celebrated men, designed the Crystal Palace for the Great Exhibition of 1851, gave the world its most popular banana, the Cavendish, and for thirty-two years cared for the superb gardens of his employer, William Cavendish, 6th Duke of Devonshire, at Chatsworth House in Derbyshire. The two were firm friends, and the Duke remembered clearly how it all began.
Sir Isaac Newton told William Stukeley about the day when an apple fell from a tree and set him thinking about the solar system.
Most people know the story of Newton’s apple: how the great mathematician, Sir Isaac Newton, stumbled onto the principle of gravitation when he saw an apple fall from a tree. In his Memoirs of Newton’s Life (1752) William Stukeley not only confirmed the truth of the tale from Newton’s own lips, but also gave us a glimpse of the astonishing fertility of mind that followed.