The Star that Winked
John Goodricke’s observations of Algol won him the Copley Medal while still in his teens, despite his disability.
1783
John Goodricke’s observations of Algol won him the Copley Medal while still in his teens, despite his disability.
1783
John Goodricke lost his hearing when just a child, but a combination of a loving family, a private education system more advanced than some people today would have us a believe, and sheer determination meant that he achieved more in his short life than seems possible.
JOHN Goodricke lost his hearing to a childhood fever, but his parents found a place for him at a pioneering school for the deaf, the Thomas Braidwood Academy in Edinburgh, which then enabled him to attend the distinguished Warrington Academy.
At seventeen, he returned home to York, where his friend Edward Pigott, who shared his love of astronomy, encouraged him to train his telescope on Algol, a star in the constellation Perseus which would inexplicably ‘wink’ for about ten hours once every few days.
John concluded that another, darker star must be orbiting it, and eclipsing it at regular intervals.
He brought his findings before the Royal Society, and was awarded the Copley Medal for 1783, ‘for outstanding achievements in research in any branch of science’.
Goodricke was now recognised as an authority across Europe, but on the 20th of April, 1786, just four days after the Royal Society elected him as a Fellow, he died of pneumonia at home in York, aged twenty-one.
Suggest answers to this question. See if you can limit one answer to exactly seven words.
Why did John Goodricke have to go to a special school in Edinburgh?