Get the latest tech news
A British clergyman who predicted black holes in 1783
Almost 200 years before scientists accepted black holes exist, a British clergyman called John Michell published some surprisingly prescient ideas about these strange cosmic objects.
Almost 200 years before scientists accepted black holes exist, a British clergyman called John Michell published some surprisingly prescient ideas about these strange cosmic objects. Michell also published a paper on the mechanics of earthquakes, which showed a way to estimate epicentres and explored the idea that quakes could produce tsunamisAfter leaving Cambridge in 1764, he married Sarah Williamson and moved to Thornhill in Yorkshire to follow in his father's footsteps as a parish rector. Michell built his own 3m (10ft) reflecting telescope and, in 1767, he was the first to apply the new mathematical methods of statistics to the study of visible stars, demonstrating that clusters like the Pleiadies could not be explained by random distribution and must be a consequence of gravitational attraction.
Or read this on Hacker News
