The First Drawings of the Moon (through a telescope)

This year is the “International Year of Astronomy,” in commemoration of the 400th anniversary of Galileo’s first astronomical observations with a telescope. However, this week I’ve seen a lot of news about Thomas Harriot, an English astronomer and mathematician. As a launch event for the International Year of Astronomy, the Royal Astronomical Society has been touting Harriot’s first drawing of the moon as seen through a telescope. It’s a rough drawing, but it clearly shows some well known features of the moon. What’s more, is that it’s dated at the 26th of July, 1609, months before Galileo’s first drawings done in December. Since Harriot never published his work, he has been much less well-known than Galileo, and the RAS is doing its best to promote the English astronomer’s accomplishments.

This whole thing reminded me of a talk I’d heard a couple of years ago. John David Jackson, author of the infamous Classical Electrodynamics textbook, came to Michigan and delivered a talk entitled “The Zeroth Theorem of the History of Science” (pdf). The premise of this theorem is that any scientific idea or phenomenon named for someone was usually discovered by someone else. He gave 5 specific examples during his talk, and it was interesting to see what names survived and who was lost in the details. Makes you wonder what other historical events are attributed to the wrong people.

This post was inspired by the History Nugget Meme from the Markeroni Blog:

The History Nugget meme is a place to write about history. All entries are welcome, whether you write about a photograph you took or want to enter a full-blown article. The only “rule” is that it has to be about the past in some way.

How to play:

1. Write about something or someone historical in your blog or website.
2. Come to the current week’s post to post your link, title and text for how you want your post described.
3. At the start of the next week’s meme, I or somebody else will compile the entries from the previous week into the next week’s meme to encourage others to come read what you write. We’ll also encourage others to post the list of links on their blogs, so we all get more link love.

Entries from last week

1. Aran Knitting Knugget by Kristin.
   A brief history of the aran sweater.

2. No more chocolate in the two-kilo size by Linda R. Moore
   The demise of Woolworth’s in the UK after nearly a hundred years.