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OK, so I was sounding off about Trafalgar the other day and last night I was watching one of those improving cultural history programmes the BBC does so well. This one was about the history of science and it majored on the work of the 18th century astronomer William Herschel.
I came away wondering why this stuff isn't taught in schools. Herschel invented the reflecting telescope, discovered Uranus (no snarky comments please), mapped the Milky Way and was the first person to form a true estimate of the ginormous size of the universe. If these achievements don't make him a greater man than Admiral Lord Horatio Nelson (I nearly wrote Hornblower) I'll eat my (gold-trimmed, three-cornered) hat.
I came away wondering why this stuff isn't taught in schools. Herschel invented the reflecting telescope, discovered Uranus (no snarky comments please), mapped the Milky Way and was the first person to form a true estimate of the ginormous size of the universe. If these achievements don't make him a greater man than Admiral Lord Horatio Nelson (I nearly wrote Hornblower) I'll eat my (gold-trimmed, three-cornered) hat.
