Astronomy and the discovery of America

Jocelyn Bell: ‘The early 60s were very exciting times in astronomy, particularly radio astronomy. Radio astronomy was perhaps ten, fifteen years old, coming into its prime, discovering things left, right and centre. It was all going on. It was fantastic.’

Narrator: ‘Cambridge University, where Jocelyn Bell had started her PhD, was leading the world in modern radio astronomy.’

Prof. Fred Hoyle: ‘It’s almost as if astronomers, and indeed physicists, were in the position of Columbus at the time he discovered a new continent. This is the way we feel at the present time.’^[1]

Columbus was to the discovery of America by the Europeans

As

Radio astronomers and physicists in the 1960s were to deep space exploration

How much more vivid Hoyle’s glass bead game comparison is in describing the excitement of discovery. We may ask:

• Is there a Leif Ericson, and a Hernán Cortés of astronomy? What are astronomy’s Aztec treasures?
• What in the exploration of America was equivalent to the discovery of the first pulsar?

[1] Beautiful Minds, BBC Productions, 2010