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“Her groundbreaking conclusion was initially rejected because it contradicted the scientific wisdom of the time, which held that there were no significant eleme
by andy_ppp 3y ago
“Her groundbreaking conclusion was initially rejected because it contradicted the scientific wisdom of the time, which held that there were no significant elemental differences between the Sun and Earth.”
Why did people think the Sun was producing light, there must have been an explanation? Hard to believe that only 100 years ago we knew so little about cosmology.
- perihelions 3y agoThey had a very plausible explanation: gravitational binding energy. It's the wrong one for the sun, but it's the correct one for non-fusing brown dwarfs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelvin%E2%80%93Helmholtz_mechanism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelvin%E2%80%93Helmholtz_mecha... ("Kelvin–Helmholtz mechanism")
- viewtransform 3y agoAround 1863 they were debating whether the Sun was burning coal or meteorite impacts could generate enough heat for the sun to glow. Experts Doubt the Sun Is Burning Coal (1863) (scientificamerican.com) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23074435 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23074435
- jackmott42 3y agoThe time period from around 1600->1900 is so fascinating, in that there are some things we had correctly figured out that are just amazing, and other things where we were so far off it seems embarrassing in retrospect. It must have been a fun time for curious people, quite a lot you could discover without huge teams and huge sums of money and equipment.