The+First+Astronomers

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Space is confusing just to to try and understand, and this is the 21st century! Imagine thinking, in the 1100-1700's, about what is up in the sky? Does the blue sky go forever? is the sky solid? How far away are the stars? Even if you DID think that the universe is infinite, or that there were alien life forms, no one would believe you. Some of the most important discoveries in history were considered "stupid" and "could never be true" only to be proven correctly after the discoverer died. Here is a brief summary of the lives and accomplishments of some of the pioneers of astronomy.

__**GALILEO GALILEI**__

--- media type="youtube" key="ZwOWUAKPxzs" height="218" width="392" Galileo was born in Pisa, Italy in 1564 with Vincenzo Galilei and Guilia Ammannati as his father and mother, correspondingly. He was the first of 6 kids. His father was a famous lutenist (lute player) and Galileo became a decent lutenist too, for a while. In 1851 he went to the University of Pisa and studied to be a physician, and while there, saw that a chandelier, when swung by the wind at different strengths, always took the same amount of time to go forward, as back.In this, he helped to create the modern pendulum clock. Later in life, he began to study Astronomy, and while doing so, made some of the most important discoveries/inventions in the history of astronomy. for one, he created the modern astronomical telescope! while he did not CREATE the telescope, the telescopes of the time were no more than spyglasses, with no more than 3 or 4x magnification, he made telescopes with 30x+ magnification! One of his first discoveries, along with one of the most important/famous, was when he saw that there was no apparent diurnal parallax (difference in position of the star in the sky while the earth is in different position around the sky) meaning that it was a distant star, disproving the belief in the immutability of the heavens.some other discoveries include: the fact that Venus has phases, similar to the moon's phases; he observed Saturn's rings, but mistook them for planets, and when he observed them later (the rings were facing earth, making them thin to a point of being invisible) and thought that they had dissapeared, confusing him.; and discovered the planet Neptune, but did not know that it was a planet and categorized it as a dim star, he did note its odd motion throughout the stars.; he was also one of the first to observe sunspots, but again, mistook them for phases of mercury, and made many, many more discoveries too.

media type="youtube" key="xjBIsp8mS-c" height="219" width="392" Stephen Hawking is a British theoretical physicist born on Jan. 8, 1942. His father was Frank Hawking, and his mother was Isobel Hawking. He had 3 siblings, 2 sisters and an adopted brother. Both as a child and at __college__, he had always been a good, but not extraordinary, student. He went to Oxford __University__ and studied natural sciences. In 1962, he got a Bachelor of Arts __degree__ at Oxford and went to Trinity Hall, Cambridge for __graduate__ __work__, but soon after he arrived, he began getting symptoms of Amyotrphic Lateral Sclerosis, the disease that is currently paralyzing him. The disease does not just have a person wake up unable to talk and move, but works more gradually, And he only got to the state he is currently in about 2 years after diagnosis. He is currently an agnostic/atheist in terms of religion. His astronomic discoveries were often times based on black holes, such as the discovery that black holes radiate, he also made a __bet__ to Kip Thorne and John Preskill concerning the Black Hole Information Paradox (the theory that information could dissapear into a black hole). he later admitted defeat and lost the bet. Hawking also published many, many books making the universe much easier to understand for many people, his books include: A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes, Black Holes and Baby Universes, Stephen Hawking's Universe: The Cosmos Explained, Universe in a Nutshell, The Theory of Everything: The Origin and Fate of the Universe, and more.
 * __Stephen Hawking__**

__**Sir Issak Newton**__ -media type="youtube" key="S_4vYCfiXTA" height="283" width="378" Isaak Newton was a British Physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, theologian, and alchemist, and many believe him to be the most influential scientist ever. he was born on January 4, 1643 with his father, also Issak Newton (he died 3 months before Issak Jr. was born) and Hannah Ayscough as his mother. she remarried to a step-father that Isaak hated. His mother left him with her new husband and left him in the care of his grandmother (his mother's mother). He went the King's school, Granham, before he was removed from school and lived with his mother again, who had recently been widowed for a second time. she tried to make Issak a farmer, which he hated. he eventually went back to school and, because of a desire for revenge at a schoolyard bully, became an amazing student, many believe he had Asperger's syndrome. he than went to Trinity college, Cambridge as a sizar (A kind of work/study role). The college was closed down less than a year after he graduated, due to the black plauge. 4 years after graduating, he began to work on astronomy, after studying optics and mathematics. He thoroughly studied the orbits of planets and the effects of gravitation on their orbit. Because of that, and the famous story of an apple falling on his head (it actually didn't hit his head, he just saw it fall a few yards away, it's a total myth) led him to discovering the universal law of gravitation. his other discoveries were the famous 3 laws of motion, which even today, have absolutely NO exceptions. Here they are. Newton's 3 laws: [|Law 1] [|Law 2] [|Law 3]