Jongjin Park
Like Handel, William Herschel, who was born in Germany and moved to England, was one of the famous composers during Mozart’s time. He composed a total of 24 symphonies and seven violin concertos, making him one of the masters of Western music both in name and reality. He also excelled at playing instruments, earning a reputation as an oboe, cello, and organist.
The reason why I am suddenly talking about a musician while talking about astrophysics is because he left a great achievement in astrophysics in the latter half of his life. He observed the night sky with an astronomical telescope he made himself, and the most representative of his achievements was to find Uranus, the seventh planet of the solar system, using a telescope. In fact, Uranus is also visible to the naked eye if you look closely, but it is too dim to have attracted our attention until then. Herschel himself, who discovered Uranus, at first thought it might be a background star or a comet without a tail, but it eventually turned out to be a planet in the solar system.
He was also good at making telescopes, and not only discovered Uranus with a telescope he made himself, but also made a total of 400 telescopes in his lifetime and sold 60 of them to various astronomers in Europe.
William Herschel had a younger sister, Caroline, who was also an astronomer and helped her brother much in his work. When William observed the heavens through his telescope, Caroline stood by her and took notes of what her brother was dictating. In fact, Uranus was not found by William alone. Because his brother and sister searched every nook and cranny of the sky together, William announced his discovery with his sister, but even then, women’s participation in society was extremely limited, so people around them took off Caroline’s name, so only William Herschel’s name was used. has been left After William’s death, Caroline moved back to Germany, this time helping her brother’s son. Her nephew was also an astronomer, and she worked with her aunt Caroline to organize and inform the world of the data left by her father.
Herschel was the first human being to discover that the solar system is not fixed in one place but moves, and he speculated that the shape of the galaxy was disk-like. He found two moons of Saturn and also found two moons of Uranus, which he had discovered. Among other things, Herschel’s other achievement was the discovery of infrared light in natural light. Herschel became the first president of the Royal Astronomical Society at the age of 82, but died the following year.
Uranus was jointly discovered by siblings William and Caroline Herschel. The King of England awarded William a knighthood for his services and made Caroline the first female astronomer to receive an annual salary. When she was 10 years old, she became blind in one eye due to the aftermath of severe illness, and her growth stopped. and taught her vocal music and mathematics. She also took her soprano solo in the choir, where her brother played her organ. Caroline discovered her many comets and nebulae (later revealed to be galaxies outside of her), and when she turned 85, she became the first woman to be appointed an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society.
If William Herschel was a genius who left a mark on the history of astronomy and music, she was a pioneer in women’s social participation. (author)
Jongjin Park
