
Great Debate (astronomy) - gilad
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Debate_(astronomy)
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hirundo
Later Hubble sent Shapley a letter that changed his mind in one fell swoop:
"Here is the letter that destroyed my universe." He became a great mapper of
galaxies and superclusters. Bravo.

Then in 1946 he was called up by the House Un-American Activities Committee
for suspicious associations:

> HUAC committee chairman John E. Rankin commented, "I have never seen a
> witness treat a committee with more contempt" and considered contempt of
> Congress charges. Shapley accused HUAC of "Gestapo methods" and advocated
> for its abolition for making "civic cowards of many citizens" by pursuing
> the "bogey of political radicalism."

Bravo again Dr. Shapley.

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raz32dust
It puts into perspective just how much our understanding of the universe has
grown in the last 100 years. Of course, this is true for all kinds of
sciences, but still, this concrete example gives me goosebumps. Just 100 years
ago, almost within one lifetime, top scientists were not sure whether there
were galaxies other than Milkyway. And today, we are observing quasars from
the beginning of the universe and gravity waves from colliding black holes.

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sp332
_Curtis 's galaxy was centered on the Sun, while Shapley correctly placed the
Sun in the outer regions of the galaxy_

It seems pretty obvious, just from looking around a bit on a dark night, that
most of the Milky Way is on one side of us. So why would any model put the sun
at the center?

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pretendscholar
Why would you know that the sun is the same as the stars?

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sp332
In 1920 though?

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lebuffon
I find it amusing that after the heliocentric debates in the middle ages, some
~500 years later we still struggled to admit that we are not the centre of
everything. :-)

Primates...

