The Major Theoretical Blunders That Held Back Progress In Modern Astronomy 129
KentuckyFC (1144503) writes "The history of astronomy is littered with ideas that once seemed incontrovertibly right and yet later proved to be bizarrely wrong. Not least among these are the ancient ideas that the Earth is flat and at the center of the universe. But there is no shortage of others from the modern era. Now one astronomer has compiled a list of examples of wrong-thinking that have significantly held back progress in astronomy. These include the idea put forward in 1909 that telescopes had reached optimal size and that little would be gained by making them any bigger. Then there was the NASA committee that concluded that an orbiting x-ray telescope would be of little value. This delayed the eventual launch of the first x-ray telescope by half a decade, which went on to discover the first black hole candidate among other things. And perhaps most spectacularly wrong was the idea that other solar systems must be like our own, with Jupiter-like planets orbiting at vast distances from their parent stars. This view probably delayed the discovery of the first exoplanet by 30 years. Indeed, when astronomers did find the first exo-Jupiter, the community failed to recognize it as a planet for six years. As Mark Twain once put it: 'It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so.'"
Intel agencies knew things before Nasa (Score:5, Interesting)
For example Los Alamos scientists figured out gamma ray bursts from stars, from anomalies in their earth watching satellites.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vela_(satellite)#Role_of_Vela_in_discovering_gamma-ray_bursts
Re:scientific consensus! (Score:3, Interesting)
Another person who doesn't understand science, or what scientific consensus means, posts attack on scientific consensus.
Stultus.
"Yes. In different words, there was "scientific consensus" on them."
no.
" with ideas that once seemed incontrovertibly right "
not scientific consensus, they where untested ideas. Don't be changing the meaning to fit you incorrect world view.
And what the post says about Jupiter isn't true at all. A small set of astronomers decide it wasn't worth funding, meanwhile on the west cost they where being built.
Re:How about all the rah-rah (Score:4, Interesting)
Speaking of fantasies, how about the flying car? Some people still play with jetpacks. The problem is not just energy, but that controlled flight takes a lot more brains than was appreciated. And our mechanical prowess has never been up to the delicacy required to build light enough wings that flap well enough to actually achieve flight, so we've had to compromise with fixed wing designs.
As to wrong science, one idea from the 19th century was "calorie", a fluid that moved heat. Wikipedia has a nice list of wrong ideas in science [wikipedia.org] that gained some popularity and acceptance.
Re:To be fair on that geocentric point of view (Score:5, Interesting)
Tycho Brahe considered the idea that the Earth wasn't the center of the universe and actually moved. However when he tried to measure stellar parallax he found he couldn't. So given the evidence he had he either had to go with the Earth doesn't move or the stars are really far away.(Apparently he considered the simpler explanation to be the Earth doesn't move.)
Yep -- and scientists of his day didn't just make this decision arbitrarily. Parallax wasn't measured accurately until the 1800s, after over two centuries of looking for it. Other evidence that pointed to a stationary earth:
(1) A rotating earth should have Coriolis forces influencing trajectory of projectiles -- but they were not observed. (Again, not observed until the 1800s.)
(2) Stellar diameters appeared to be fixed. If the stars were just beyond the planets in distance (as they were assumed to be), they should appear to change diameter as the earth gets closer or farther from them. (Again, not explained properly until the 1800s.)
(3) Perhaps most importantly, the motion of the earth required propulsion, according to the physics of the time. The planets and the sun and moon were assumed to be in perpetual motion because of some "aetherial" matter property that was special to celestial bodies. Normal terrestrial matter, since the time of Aristotle, was observed to come to a natural state of rest (Newton's first law was not yet known). Forces acting at a distance, as was later postulated by Newton's theory of universal gravitation -- were considered mystical, "occult," and non-scientific. So there was really no easy mechanism to explain how the earth stayed in continous motion, according to the physics of the time.
So yeah, according to the science of the time, the simpler explanation was that the earth doesn't move.
(By the way, these were critical elements that later came up during the debates that Galileo had with other scientists of the day. He didn't really have good explanations for most of them, and it wasn't until really Newton's theory of gravity that the theoretical apparatus was really present to make the truth of heliocentrism viable within contemporary physics.)
Re:"affirmative action for diversity of ideas"? (Score:4, Interesting)
I have been interested in astronomy since primary school, back in the 60's the astronomy books in the adult section of the local library were still speculating about canals on Mars and tropical jungles on Venus, black holes were widely viewed as a "mathematical curiosity". Our knowledge about the universe has exploded like no other time in history, Hubble happy snaps are posted on the walls of libraries and the home encyclopedia has been replaced by the home computer. If I want to take an astronomy course from the best universities on the planet I can simply fire up youtube and start watching the lectures, less than a decade ago that was not possible, just finding the right text books was a challenge.
Scientific knowledge has experienced exponential growth in the last half century, I feel privileged to have been born at a time where I can witness scientific discovery unfolding before my eyes on a regular basis. Communication technology is undeniably the major driver of that growth and I'm proud of the small role I've played building that technology.