William's father instilled in him a keen interest in scientific knowledge and maths. By the early 17 seventies, heges told of robert smith's two volume treatise on optics. That's really when he gets plugged into the mechanics of astronomy. He is self taught from his own reading, it, from these books. And this relevant later on about how he can see things and discover things. Because he's not disinterested in observing planets and the motions of the planets. He's actually got a curiosity about the nature of the heavens beyond the solar system,. How they relate to another, what their distances are, their distribution and all o. This is driven just by his
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss William Herschel (1738 – 1822) and his sister Caroline Herschel (1750 – 1848) who were born in Hanover and made their reputation in Britain. William was one of the most eminent astronomers in British history. Although he started life as a musician, as a young man he became interested in studying the night sky. With an extraordinary talent, he constructed telescopes that were able to see further and more clearly than any others at the time. He is most celebrated today for discovering the planet Uranus and detecting what came to be known as infrared radiation. Caroline also became a distinguished astronomer, discovering several comets and collaborating with her brother.
With
Monica Grady
Professor of Planetary and Space Sciences at the Open University
Carolin Crawford
Institute of Astronomy, Cambridge and an Emeritus Fellow of Emmanuel College, University of Cambridge
And
Jim Bennett
Keeper Emeritus at the Science Museum in London.
Studio producer: John Goudie