December 14th, 2013

"When, according to habit, I was contemplating the stars in a clear sky, I noticed a new and unusual star, surpassing the other stars in brilliancy. There had never before been any star in that place in the sky."

This chap at one point in time personally owned 1% of the total wealth of Denmark. He also lived like that, in a huge mansion with a huge staff, holding large and lavish social parties. He was a stickler for etiquette - so much that he even avoided relieving himself once in a party, actually falling ill as a result! Some even say this contributed to his dying just a few weeks later. Some say he was poisoned. Some even say he was poisoned by his pupil for the huge amount of observational data this chap had. Of course you have to concede that this illustrious student of his - who arguably surpassed the mentor in scientific contribution - published all of the research he inherited from this chap in the original name.

Thank goodness then that this rich nitpicker of etiquette did not spend his time and energy in improving that 1% of his share in Danish wealth to 1.5% or 2%. Because he took up astronomy. And the result is there to see for all.

He is widely considered the last great naked-eye astronomer, before a certain Galileo built the first telescope. He proposed his own planetary model which differed from both - the popular and established Aristotelian version and the more revolutionary Copernican version - since it was geo-heliocentric! His observations made the sun the centre of all planetary motion as is the case, but his faith could not stop the sun from going round the earth. This last bit was of course proven incorrect, but that does not take away anything from the fact that his model formed a very critical stepping stone in the giant leap from Aristotle to Copernicus and Galileo. A stepping stone which his pupil Johannes Kepler used and proposed the landmark elliptical orbits theory.

This is just a part of what this fellow did though. He found out that comets passed through the supposedly still celestial spheres, traveling on their own non-circular paths not centred on the earth. Then he went further and made a major contribution to shattering the Aristotlean belief by identifying a new bright star and finding out using the then-path-breaking technique of parallax-measurements that this new bright star - literally 'de nova stella' - occurred outside all the planetary spheres. The name stuck, and we still use the names 'nova' and 'supernova' for such stellar explosions.

His great contribution to the way science (particularly astronomy) is studied, is evident from the fact that he calculated the angle between the lunar orbit and the ecliptic to an astonishing accuracy of a quarter of a degree (so much for a naked eye astronomer)!

This shows why he is considered a lofty standard-setter for empirical study - a benchmark for incrementally error-free, larger data-set-using, precise and objective observations. For science and scientists, this meticulous approach to observing, studying and analysing is arguably his more lasting legacy and a greater stepping stone than anything else he did. Oh and of course mentoring and teaching Johannes Kepler!

Happy 467th birthday Tycho Brahe!

November 20th, 2013

This chap's name is arguably the most referred in astronomy - more specifically in physical cosmology - by the virtue of the fact that the oldest and the most famous of NASA's three space-based telescopes is named after him. This telescope is also the only one of the big three which catches light in visible spectrum, and hence a lot of new pictures of newer galaxies, nebulae and other celestial bodies are credited with its name.

This chap can also be termed the Gandhi of astronomy as far as the Nobel prize is concerned, since he is the most famous and arguably the most deserving astronomer who did not win it! This was largely due to the fact that astronomy was not considered part of physics during his lifetime, and probably also enjoyed a lesser status as compared to physics and even lesser as compared to theoretical physics (as evident from the anecdote of Elsa Einstein, visiting the Mount Wilson observatory with her illustrious husband, looked at all the giant telescopes and complex machinery and remarked - "all this to solve the mysteries of the universe? My husband does the same on the back of an envelope!").

But this chap left the world shocked by his discovery that Andromeda is actually a different galaxy outside the Milky Way, and consequently, the universe extends much beyond the Milky Way, contains several other galaxies. He went further, studied the Cepheid variation and discovered that all the galaxies are moving away from each other at great speeds. He ended up concluding from this that the universe itself is expanding, creating the effect that all galaxies are moving away from each other. This later led to the hypothesis by others that this means the universe was probably accommodated in a single point - the singularity made famous by Penrose and Hawking - and expanded from there.

Known to be quite eccentric in his personal life (for example he went to study in England from the US and turned into a complete Anglophile, copying the pre-WW1 English style of dressing and speaking), this chap's another equally brilliant discovery was probably his assistant Milton Humason who was a janitor at the Mount Wilson observatory before rising to be an assistant to this great astronomer and making vital contributions in his discoveries.

Galileo - the father of modern science - was a man of several talents. If his mantle of theoretical physics can be said to be carried by Einstein in the 20th century, this man can be said to have carried Galileo's mantle of astronomy in the 20th century. Happy 124th birthday Edwin Hubble!

November 9th, 2013

"Except for children (who don't know enough not to ask the important questions), few of us spend much time wondering why Nature is the way it is; where the Cosmos came from, or whether it was always here; if time will one day flow backward, and effects precede causes; or whether there are ultimate limits to what humans can know. There are even children, and I have met some of them, who want to know what a black hole looks like; what is the smallest piece of matter; why we remember the past and not the future; and why there is a Universe ...

... There are naive questions, tedious questions, ill-phrased questions, questions put after inadequate self-criticism. But every question is a cry to understand the world. There is no such thing as a dumb question."

For almost all of us reading this piece, the above quote by this chap is really a giveaway. He was an astronomer. More specifically, he studied cosmology - the branch that deals with the origin and the fate of the universe. His instrumental work in astronomy included till then the most accurate predictions of environmental conditions on the planet Venus and moons of Jupiter and Saturn. He correctly predicted presence of water on Europa. He concentrated much of his attention in the later part of his career to search for exoplanets and seeking any evidence for extra-terrestrial life. He was in fact a pioneer of this particular quest. He was the first one to demonstrate forming of amino acids from non-organic chemicals by radiation.

All of these achievements in astronomy and astrophysics are very significant in their own right. The work in space research in general, NASA missions in particular, and search for extra-terrestrial intelligence is in fact pioneering and unparalleled. But this chap is known the most for his most significant contribution. He is - quite simply - the greatest scientific storyteller and science populariser of our time. And that's no understatement. We have him and the likes of him to thank for whatever small reduction we've seen in the colossal amount of unscientific and pseudo-scientific nonsense that passes for knowledge. And this is no understatement, either.

And yet he was far from an idealistic crusader for purity of scientific thought in life. "Bright, curious children are a national and world resource. They need to be cared for, cherished, and encouraged. But mere encouragement isn't enough. We must also give them the essential tools to think with ... ... Both scepticism and wonder are skills that need honing and practice. Their harmonious marriage within the mind of every schoolchild ought to be a principal goal of public education". If ever there is a worldwide practical handbook of school education, it could start with these exact lines.

We lost him much earlier than we thought and hoped for. But if we make an honest and committed attempt to answer the very next question - any question - asked to us by any child, and go online or open a book to find the answer in case we don't know it, then his spirit of "marriage of skepticism and wonder" lives (it lives metaphorically of course - he would never have approved this writeup if I had left any ambiguity on spirits living!)

There is no such thing as a dumb question, indeed. Happy 79th birthday Carl Sagan.