The 17th-century drawings that prove a humble Englishman mapped the moon BEFORE Galileo

Thomas Harriot beat Galileo in showing the world what the lunar surface looked like nearly six months before the Italian invited the world to come and see his etchings in December 1609.

Harriot had already drawn and plotted his chart in July that year, dated documents show.

His own telescope was just as powerful as Galileo's, it appears - but his ego was considerably smaller.

So while the Italian reaped the glory for 'discovering' the lunar surface, the Englishman quietly carried on stargazing and charting lunar landscapes.

www.dailymail.co.uk...

An interesting discovery which in no way makes Galileo's standing anything less than it is.

Hopefully it will bring to light the work Harriot did in the such fields of astronomy and mathematics,and he will no longer be just remembered as the man who introduced the potato to Britain.


[edit on 16-1-2009 by DantesLost]

Howdy Dantes

Interesting I'd not heard of this work before just his hand in bringing the potato to England....and setting the framework for the UK greatest food contibution...the chip!

He also studied optics and refraction and apparently discovered Snell's law 20 years before Snellius.

Ah a good example of publish or perish - but as an English Gentlemen that might have smacked of lower class values.


You're not from Eccles are you?


[edit on 16/1/09 by Hanslune]

I would have to agree with one of the posters from the original link...

invention is useless if no one knows about it

It happens. Is it a shame? I can't say... but as is so often the case, this kind of occurrence is always repeated throughout history. Just add this event in with the statements "Columbus did not discover America" or "Marconi did not invent the radio".

reply to post by The Soothsayer


Yep and lots of archaeological excavation never get reports written on them. Data and discoveries are often lost.

One wonders how many Newtons, Da Vinci's, Russelford's, Imhotep's, Tsai Lun's or Ibn Al-Baitar's have never come forward or existed in worlds where you couldn't communicate there thoughts and ideas in a lasting form?

A great man once said, the greatest scientist in the world died of typhus as a two-year old in an unknown Chinese Village.

I'm from north Manchester,but I do work near Eccles.

Harriot also did outstanding work on the solution of equations and recognition of negative roots and complex roots.

You may find these sites of interest.
www.mi.sanu.ac.yu...
www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk...
www.17centurymaths.com...



I agree too that many people have been over-looked or,in some cases been mistaken as the ones who invented/discovered something.It all comes down to who gets the patent for it.

Thanks Dantes

Not to much into math but thanks for the links!

Another area you can see misidentified heros, lost ideas and first inventors not rewarded is in the history of early aviation.