Christiaan Huygens

Christiaan Huygens became known due to his contributions such as the Wave Theory of Light, which was based on Robert Hooke?s suggestions and had three theories that explain the mechanics of light. In the later year, Isaac Newton provided a different explanation. He also explained something about Momentum that contributed to Mechanics. In Astronomy, on the other hand, he was recognized for discovering Titan, Saturn?s largest Moon. He also observed the Orion Nebula, which he subdivided into different stars using his modern telescope. The region that appears brighter than other regions was named after him, calling it Huygens Region.

The transit of Mercury over the Sun was also observed along with astronomers. Moreover, he improved the telescope lenses in 1654, which helped resolve astronomical disputes. Another is his invention of the Pendulum Clock and watches. In 1675, he focused on the creation of balance wheel and spring assembly, which can now be found in wristwatches. Notably, the first watch that was motion-regulated by a balance spring was made in Paris under Christiaan?s direction and served as a gift to King Louis XIV of France.

In 1680 marked the discovery of internal combustion engine that is fuelled by gunpowder. Sometime in 1681, on the other hand, he returned to Holland due to the prejudice of French Catholics towards his inventions. In there, he took the opportunity to construct enormous lenses, which was placed at the Royal Society of London. It was also at this time that he discovered the achromatic eye-piece telescope.

Moreover, Christiaan Huygens? writings include Horologium Oscillatorium in 1673 and Cosmotheoros or Conjectures Concerning the Planetary Worlds, in which he discussed the existence of extraterrestrial life and was published prior to his death on July 8, 1695.

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This man whose complete name is Galileo di Vincenzo Bonaiuti de? Galilei was born in Pisa, Italy on February 15, 1564. He was the eldest among the six children of Vincenzo Galilei, who was then a composer and music theorist, and Giulia Ammannati. He had a relationship with Marina Gamba to whom he bore three kids, but the sad part is that they never got married. Tracing early college days, he originally wanted to pursue priesthood, but due to the request of his father, he enrolled at the University of Pisa for a medical degree; however, he didn?t continue it and pursued Mathematics instead.

The first person to make use of the Telescope was Galileo. He made this to study the heavens. During this time, he wanted to show to the Church what could be seen on the Telescope, the Church refused, as they believed that it might be the Devil who lets him see anything on it. Through this device, he was able to see Sunspots or dark patches on the Sun and that its motion indicates the Sun is rotating on its axis. Are you familiar with the Galilean Moons? These are the four brightest moons of Jupiter that orbit around the planet Jupiter. On the other hand, he also stated that the planet Venus has undergone complete phase same as that of the Moon. He also made observations which oppose findings of other astronomers.

He claimed that the planets were disks, the Milky Way was composed of very big stars, and Saturn had ?ears? as he recognized those, but they were actually rings, and the Moon was not smooth as it had craters. Aside from his contributions in the field of Astronomy, he also had for Physics, which had something to do with the Laws of Motion and Inertia, which was continued by other astronomers, and Kinematics which states that the total distance is proportional to the square of the time. It is also essential to note that he has gone blind most probably after many times he studied and looked at the Sun through his telescope.

There had been arguments between Galileo and the Church for opposing and challenging Aristotelian theories of the Universe. This had put him into a dilemma and was obliged to take back all he had supported and put him under house arrest. Likewise, he was accused of being guilty for heresy. It was believed that this Science hero died of natural causes on January 8, 1642.

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Edmond Halley

Halley was born in the Haggerston town in Shoreditch, England. His father, Edmond Halley Sr., came from a wealthy family of soap makers in London. Since childhood, he became very interested with mathematics. In 1763, He entered the prestigious Queen's College in Oxford to pursue a science and math degree. Halley already published a couple of newspaper articles about the sunspots and solar system during his stay at Queen's. In 1676, He decided to leave Oxford to visit the Saint Helena Island located around the Atlantic sea. During his stay at the island, Halley studied the appearance of stars from the Southern Hemisphere using a 24-ft. aerial telescope.

In 1678, He returned to England and eventually became an active member of the Royal Society. His colleague, astronomer Johannes Hevelius, was questioned by the Royal Society's Robert Hooke in making use of the telescope to counteract the arrangement of stars. However, Halley defended Hevelius from Hooke's criticisms by presenting verifications of Hevelius' initial observations. During the same year, he wrote a book entitled “Catalogus Stellarum Australium”. The book contains more than 300 Southern Hemisphere stars observations. Halley finished his MA Degree at Oxford and coincided with his election from the Royal Society.

In 1862, Halley married Mary Tooke and lived together with three children in Islington, England. He spent most of his time in conducting in-depth studies on lunar observations. In August 1864, He went to Cambridge to meet and discuss his study on “Kepler's Planetary Motion Law” with Sir Isaac Newton. The latter convinced Halley to write a book entitled “Prinicipia Mathematica Philosophae Naturalis” in 1687. He made use of his personal money to publish the book worldwide.

Halley became a devoted member of the Royal Society until his death in 1742. His grave is currently situated at the St. Margaret Church along with fellow astronomers Nathaniel Bliss and John Pond. The two astronomers were also from the Royal Society.

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As a student, Kapteyn was interested in the physical sciences, and this made him earn degrees in mathematics and physics from the University of Utrecht. After graduation, he jumped into full astronomic work through a job at the Leiden Observatory, and after this he went to the University of Groningen where he taught astronomy and theoretical mechanics for several decades until he retired in 1921. Today, the astronomy institute of the university now bears his name.

Like other acclaimed astronomers of his time, Kapteyn was lauded for recording the geographies of thousands of stars in space. One of his early works was the Cape Photographic Durchmusterung, a collaborative publication project he co-authored with David Gill that comprehensively listed the locations and magnitudes of nearly half a million stars in the Southern Hemisphere.

As far as the realm of cosmology is concerned, Kapteyn was strongly fascinated by the motions of stars; a concept that soon developed into the belief that the motions of the stars were not random but rather tied to an underlying system in the universe. The observations that Kapteyn became the initial evidences of Milky Way galaxy's rotation, and this ultimately resulted to the official recognition of galactic rotation by astronomers Bertil Lindblad and Jan Oort.

Kapteyn's most valuable contribution to the field was his life-work which aimed to come up with a grand theory on the arrangement and motion of the universe. In this study, the astronomer imagined the universe as kind of lens-shaped island called the Kapteyn's Universe model. In this model, the Milky Way galaxy was calculated to be 40,000 light years in size, wherein the sun is 2,000 light years to its center. These figures were incorrect in as much as Kapteyn was still not aware of the modern concept of interstellar absorption.

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Edward Charles Pickering

Pickering was born in Boston and educated at Harvard University's Lawrence Scientific School. His scientific endeavor included physics, and this made him a brilliant faculty member at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for ten years. It also was in this school where he was able to spearhead the construction of the first physics laboratory for instruction in America.

Pickering's interest in physics made it easy for him to specialize and flow into the field of astronomy. Soon he was appointed as chair of the Harvard College Observatory, a position that he held for more than forty years.

More than a dedicated scholar, Pickering was a leader who knew how to shake and move the discipline. He actively searched for ways to incorporate new technologies in photography with astronomy. He raised funds and built partnerships to realize major projects. He prepared a huge body of work for future scientists to use and make sense of. And most of all, he made sure that the public knew the significance of astronomy in the society.

One of Pickering's best astronomic legacies was his in-depth and huge body of photometric work on more than 45,000 stars in space. To achieve such feat, he was said to have manually crafted more than 1.4 million photometric devices.

Ensuring the continuous development of the discipline, Pickering invited a group of young female astronomers to work with him, a group that would be called Pickering's Harem. Its members consisted of the likes of Annie Cannon, Antonia Maury, Williamina Fleming, and Swan Leavitt. The discoveries that the group made were considered as the foundation of the modern theories on cosmological distances.

The last legacy of Pickering was the institution of the American Association of Variable Star Observers. In 1911, an organization that aimed to gather, evaluate, analyze, and share various star observations of astronomers, researchers, and scholars. The organization continues to exist until today, its current membership reaching to more than 2,000 worldwide.

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Edwin Hubble

He is best known for the Hubble Law. There are observable “redshifts” or Doppler shifts in the visible spectra of other galaxies. His law states that the degree of redshift is proportional to the galaxy's distance from the planet Earth. With the observation of Doppler shifts, astronomers also determined that the universe is continuously expanding.

Edwin Hubble also discovered that our galaxy is not the only one in the universe. Back then, people think that the body of the Milky and its arms form most of the cosmos. He observed several space clouds, including the Andromeda “nebulae.” His 1922-1923 observations proved that these nebulae are much farther, even beyond the Milky Way, and that they are separate Galaxies.

His theories received several oppositions from contemporary astronomers. However, after the release of his discovery on January 1, 1925, mankind's view of the universe has changed forever. Shortly after his death, he was awarded the Nobel Price for physics, for his contribution in the field of astrophysics. A space telescope is also named after him, the Hubble Telescope, which was launched in 1990.

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Thales

One of Thales' major accomplishments was being able to measure the height of the pyramids. He did this without using any sophisticated instruments, relying mostly on observation and mathematical analysis.

Given his analytic mind, Thales was able to introduce geometry to his fellow Greeks, after studying it in Egypt. Several geometric theorems being taught in schools today were presented by Thales. One of these is the theorem that states: when two straight lines intersect, the angles between them are equal.

In the field of astronomy, Thales impressed everyone by accurately foretelling a solar eclipse. In those days, it was considered a grand achievement, and rightly so. Solar eclipses were much harder to predict than lunar ones, and the people didn't have calendars or the mathematical knowhow to predict important astronomical events.

Thales also made a name for himself when he introduced a method of navigation at sea using the constellations as guide. He demonstrated that ships can find their way by navigating according to the positions of the constellation Ursa Minor in the night sky.

But Thales was only human, and he was guilty of a few erroneous assumptions. For example, he believed that everything was made mostly of water. He believed that earthquakes happened because the earth was like a flat disc floating on a vast ocean of water. He tried explaining other natural phenomena based on his supposition that water made up all things.

Everyone knows now that the earth is not flat, and neither is water the main constituent of all things. But the way Thales thought started something very important. He is the first person known to make a rational and scientific attempt at explaining phenomena without the use of superstition or supernatural explanations. In effect, he helped develop the scientific method of investigation.

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