Thanks as always for writing. I'm always intrigued by stories of astronomical events that occurred before artifical lighting. I can only imagine how many fewer stars would have been reported falling if the same event occurred over NYC tonight? It's interesting to think that Greenwich was a more than suitable location for an observatory until 1900 only a few generations of humans ago.
That's a really good point I hadn't even thought of.
The night sky must've been quite a bit different to most people back then, and they must've had a different relationship and familiarity with it than urban dwellers today that are rarely ever in a truly dark place without tons of light pollution around them.
The first users of Newton's telescopes just went out the door of their London homes and viewed the heavens. No trips to the Atacama desert were needed back then.
I'm also a sucker for stories about going out after dark during a new moon in London before gas lighting. It was an invitation for being robbed between in narrow streets in the pitch black night. Quality artificial light is such a new phenomena in the human experience.
BTW - how are the pull-ups going? I'm still stuck at two.
Pull-ups still going... I haven't tried to see if my max has increased lately, but they're getting a bit easier as I train, so that feels like progress. I don't attempt my max each time, I just do sets of 4 to kind of get back in a little shape. And then at some point I'll increase the number progressively.
Thanks as always for writing. I'm always intrigued by stories of astronomical events that occurred before artifical lighting. I can only imagine how many fewer stars would have been reported falling if the same event occurred over NYC tonight? It's interesting to think that Greenwich was a more than suitable location for an observatory until 1900 only a few generations of humans ago.
That's a really good point I hadn't even thought of.
The night sky must've been quite a bit different to most people back then, and they must've had a different relationship and familiarity with it than urban dwellers today that are rarely ever in a truly dark place without tons of light pollution around them.
The first users of Newton's telescopes just went out the door of their London homes and viewed the heavens. No trips to the Atacama desert were needed back then.
I'm also a sucker for stories about going out after dark during a new moon in London before gas lighting. It was an invitation for being robbed between in narrow streets in the pitch black night. Quality artificial light is such a new phenomena in the human experience.
BTW - how are the pull-ups going? I'm still stuck at two.
Pull-ups still going... I haven't tried to see if my max has increased lately, but they're getting a bit easier as I train, so that feels like progress. I don't attempt my max each time, I just do sets of 4 to kind of get back in a little shape. And then at some point I'll increase the number progressively.