Galileo Galilei

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Based only on uncertain descriptions of the first practical

telescope which Hans Lippershey tried to patent in the
Netherlands in 1608,[104]Galileo, in the following year, made a
telescope with about 3x magnification. He later made improved
versions with up to about 30x magnification.[105] With a Galilean
telescope, the observer could see magnified, upright images on
the earth—it was what is commonly known as a terrestrial
telescope or a spyglass. He could also use it to observe the
sky; for a time he was one of those who could construct
telescopes good enough for that purpose. On 25 August 1609,
he demonstrated one of his early telescopes, with a
magnification of about 8 or 9, to Venetian lawmakers. His
telescopes were also a profitable sideline for Galileo, who sold
them to merchants who found them useful both at sea and as
items of trade. He published his initial telescopic astronomical
observations in March 1610 in a brief treatise entitled Sidereus
Nuncius (Starry Messenger).[106]
In 1970, Hawking postulated what became known as the
second law of black hole dynamics, that the event horizon of a
black hole can never get smaller.[161] With James M.
Bardeen and Brandon Carter, he proposed the four laws of
black hole mechanics, drawing an analogy
with thermodynamics.[162] To Hawking's irritation, Jacob
Bekenstein, a graduate student of John Wheeler, went
further—and ultimately correctly—to apply thermodynamic
concepts literally.[163][164] In the early 1970s, Hawking's work
with Carter, Werner Israel and David C. Robinson strongly
supported Wheeler's no-hair theorem that no matter what the
original material from which a black hole is created, it can be
completely described by the properties of mass, electrical
charge and rotation.[165][166] His essay titled "Black Holes" won
the Gravity Research Foundation Award in January
1971.[167] Hawking's first book, The Large Scale Structure of

Stephen Hawking
 Philolaus (c. 480–385 BCE) described an astronomical system in
which a Central Fire (different from the Sun) occupied the centre of
the universe, and a counter-Earth, the Earth, Moon, the Sun itself,
planets, and stars all revolved around it, in that order outward from
the centre.[77] Heraclides Ponticus (387–312 BCE) proposed that the
Earth rotates on its axis.[78] Aristarchus of Samos (310 BCE – c. 230
BCE) was the first to advance a theory that the earth orbited the
sun.[79] Further mathematical details of Aristarchus' heliocentric
system were worked out around 150 BC by
theHellenistic astronomer Seleucus of Seleucia. Though Aristarchus'
original text has been lost, a reference in Archimedes' book The Sand
Reckoner (Archimedis Syracusani Arenarius & Dimensio Circuli)
describes a work by Aristarchus in which he advanced the
heliocentric model. Archimedes wrot

Nicolaus Copernicus

1580 portrait (artist unknown) in the Old Town City Hall, Toruń

Born 19 February 1473

Toruń (Thorn), Royal Prussia,

Kingdom of Poland
Sir Isaac Newton