Quote:
Originally Posted by Disinfo Agent
I didn't know about all those things, but I do remember hearing that Kant was the first to propose the "primordial solar nebula hypothesis" by which we currently explain the formation of the planets.
He was a clever guy, even if his philosophical works are a chore to read. And an honest philosopher too, not a quack like so many who claimed to follow his footsteps.
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Coldcreation
Kant was 31 years old when he wrote what is often credited to E. Hubble: the discovery that galaxies (nebula) are star systems that lie beyond the Milky Way, and thus enlarging our view of the heavens. .
|
That shows that Kant had good "instincts", but I'm guessing it was Hubble who first came up with some semblance of evidence in support of that theory. |
I don't think it was instinct that would lead Kant to his conclusions, though that may have helped, along with some pure logical reasoning. He was very familliar with Newton's work.
Hubble discovered a variable star (as I recall) in a distant 'nebula' but the supernova discovery years earlier in the Andromeda nebula, 1880's was already evidence enough. Either way Hubble showed observationally that the universe was much larger than most others (not all) before him thought, that the distance to remote objects, nebula, was emormous. Whether or not he's tha man behind the grim landscape of expansion, a hero of the foremost blue-collar epic ever created (the BB), appears almost trivial. He was, either way, an enthralled guide to the universe at large: that is for sure.
Another note on Kant. He did not stop with the galaxies. I'll have to double check this, but if I'm not mistaken he went on to predict the universe itself was eliptical: an idea not backed by observations available at the time, and disproved by observation today. That of course takes nothing away from the insight that both he and Thomas Wright of Duram showed with the extragalactic nebulae prediction.
Coldcreation