Famous Astronomers
| Thales of Miletus c.624–c.546 BC | First recorded scientist and philosopher – advanced the theory that there could be scientific causes for natural phenomena. And the world’s first recorded successful olive speculator. |
Pythagoras of Samos, |
All round genius – started his own religion with bizarre rules and is acclaimed as the father of numbers. He kick started the age of Greek genius. |
Anaxagoras of Clazomenae, |
Conjectured that the sun was a burning molten rock (not too far off the mark) and that the moon shone because it reflected the light from the sun (correct). Immediately imprisoned. |
Eudoxus of Cnidus |
Heroic failure. Created first planesphere – a model of the movement of the heavenly bodies. Instantly got it wrong by putting the earth at the centre rather than the Sun. |
Gan De, Shi Shen 4th Century BC, and Wu Xian (Unknown dates) |
First ever accurate recordings of star positions. Invaluable help to later astronomers in the Far East and here when explaining precession and recording novae and comets |
Democritus of Abdera |
Tried to promote the theory that the world was a void unless filled with matter, and that this matter was made up of atoms. 2000 years elapsed before he was proved right. Mainly discredited due to the efforts of… |
Aristotle |
Invented so many disciplines that he can be rightly regarded as the person who laid more of the foundations of the modern world than any other. The problem with being such a towering figure is that when you get it wrong, it stays wrong for an enormously long time. Aristotle thought that the earth was at the centre of the universe. Can be held responsible for holding up the progress of science for nearly two millennia. |
Aristarchos of Samos |
One of the first people to believe that the earth moved around the sun. His correct arguments were shot down by followers of thickies like Aristotle. |
Eratosthenes of Cyrene |
Genius that proved that the earth was round and accurately estimated the circumference of the planet using a pillar and a hole in the ground. |
Hipparchus of Nicaea |
Regarded as the father of astronomy – accurately estimated the distance of the moon from the earth, and his analysis of previous star catalogues enabled him to present the first theory of precession of the stars. |
Claudius Ptolemy |
The last great ancient astronomer. Important because his star catalogue, the Almagest, provided the basis of calculating astral and planetary movements for the following 1200 years or so. |
Aryabhata |
Paved the way for complex mathematics with theories that influenced Arab and then Western mathematicians. His theories on positional notation and the use of the number zero are invaluable and were improved on by… |
Brahmagupta |
Continued the fine Indian tradition of conceptual leaps in the theories of mathematics and numbers. His works were exported to Islam and enabled all of us to get better at sums. |
Abd Al-Rahman. |
First of the great Islamic scholars on our list. Updated many of the measurements of Ptolemy, and also was the first to record the Large Magellanic Cloud as well as many other stellar phenomena. |
Abu Ali al-Hasan ibn al-Haytham 965-1040 |
Immensely talented man who did much of his work whilst pretending to be mad so that he would not have to serve the (properly) mad Fatimid Caliph al-Hakim. Undertook much work on the nature of light and its properties. Also invented the concept of the camera obscura. |
Abu Arrayhan Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Biruni 973-1048 |
One of the greatest geniuses of Islam, astronomy wasn’t a speciality for him. Nonetheless he measured the earth to within 30 kilometres of its circumference, improved the works of Ptolemy and wrote roughly 150 books comprising 13,000 pages of mathematical calculations. All this whilst living at the edges of competing empires and civil wars. Biruni was often found fleeing for his life from various places. |
Nasir al-din al-Tusi |
As with Biruni, lived in exciting times – he was in Baghdad when the last Abbasid Caliph was kicked to death in a carpet by the Mongols. He still subscribed to the geocentric theory of the universe (the earth being at the centre of the universe), but was so skilled a theorist and practical mathematician, that when Copernicus attempted to disprove his theories he couldn’t, even though al-Tusi was in the wrong. |
Nicholaus Copernicus |
The Renaissance came to the west largely thanks to the genius of Petrarch and Copernicus. Rational thought would, after many more struggles, overcome the smothering blanket of Christian conformity. Copernicus, 1600 years after Aristarchos, put the sun at the centre of the solar system. He also said that the stars were immeasurably further away from the sun than the earth was and, even more ahead of his time, that there was no one centre of the universe. |
Tycho Brahe |
One of the richest men in Denmark, he had a silver nose after his first one was cut of in a duel. Chiefly remembered now for his studies of the supernova Tycho’s Star in 1572 (he coined the term ‘nova’). |
Galileo Galilei |
The first use of a telescope improved our knowledge of the universe by a factor of 4 immediately. Galileo didn’t invent the telescope, but was the first person to point it to the heavens whereupon he immediately discovered the 4 biggest moons orbiting Jupiter. His support of Copernicus meant that he lived under house arrest for the last 9 years of his life. |
Johannes Kepler |
Proved Copernicus correct with his laws of planetary motion. His theories of elliptical orbits finally improved on the most advanced geocentric calculations. More importantly, his mother was tried as a witch (but got off on procedural irregularities.) |
Isaac Newton |
The Godfather of modern mathematics and physics, Newton was a thoroughly obsessive man who once stuck a needle in his eye to see if altering the shape of his lens distorted his vision. Always getting into long and pointless feuds and crushing his rivals. His laws of motion and gravity stood until Einstein's theories of relativity. Work on nature of light was vital for astronomy. |
Caroline Lucretia Herschel |
A member of the talented Herschel family, she achieved great things despite being treated as a servant for most of her life. Discoverer of many stellar phenomena and teacher of the great all round polymath William Herschel. |
John Goodricke |
You think you’ve got it tough? Goodricke predicted that some stars such as Algol varied due to the fact that they are binary systems and that they pulsate because they obstruct each others light as they orbit each other. It was around 100 years before his theory could be confirmed. Not only did he do this when he was a teenager, but also despite being deaf and mute following a bout of scarlet fever. He died from pneumonia after failing to wrap up warmly whist star gazing. He was only 21. |
F.W. Bessel |
First person to measure a star’s distance through parallax, also anticipated that Sirius and Procyon had unseen companions due to the eccentricity of those stars’ motions |
Joseph von Fraunhofer |
Discoverer of spectroscopy, which gives us the majority of information that we get on the elemental composition of stars. |
Christian Doppler |
Originator of the Doppler effect, most clearly experienced when hearing the change in sound of a police siren when coming towards and going away from us. This wave compression can also be detected with light, and enables astronomers to estimate the distance of far away objects, even, to measure the size of the universe itself. |
Albert Einstein |
His theories on the speed and nature of light and gravity forever changed our understanding of the world around us as well as the nature of time. Possibly the most imaginative man who ever lived. |
Georges-Henri Lemaitre |
Originator of Big Bang theory. Not only thoroughly brave (he won the military cross with palms in the First World War), but also a Catholic priest. |
Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar |
The Chandrasekhar Limit governs at what mass a star is likely to explode as a supernova. He did this despite the obstinate opposition of the eminent scientist Arthur Eddington. |
Robert Owen Evans |
An independent amateur astronomer who has discovered more supernovae than anyone else. He does this through a formidable memory and an enormous work rate |
Arno Allan Penzias and Robert Woodrow Wilson. |
Discoverer of the background echoes of the Big Bang. These can be seen in some of the interference that on an untuned television. |
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