The Major Theoretical Blunders That Held Back Progress In Modern Astronomy

KentuckyFC (1144503) writes "The history of astronomy is littered with ideas that once seemed incontrovertibly right and yet later proved to be bizarrely wrong. Not least among these are the ancient ideas that the Earth is flat and at the center of the universe. But there is no shortage of others from the modern era. Now one astronomer has compiled a list of examples of wrong-thinking that have significantly held back progress in astronomy. These include the idea put forward in 1909 that telescopes had reached optimal size and that little would be gained by making them any bigger. Then there was the NASA committee that concluded that an orbiting x-ray telescope would be of little value. This delayed the eventual launch of the first x-ray telescope by half a decade, which went on to discover the first black hole candidate among other things. And perhaps most spectacularly wrong was the idea that other solar systems must be like our own, with Jupiter-like planets orbiting at vast distances from their parent stars. This view probably delayed the discovery of the first exoplanet by 30 years. Indeed, when astronomers did find the first exo-Jupiter, the community failed to recognize it as a planet for six years. As Mark Twain once put it: 'It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so.'"

Comments

Half a decade?

[CrimsonAvenger]

From TFS:

Then there was the NASA committee that concluded that an orbiting x-ray telescope would be of little value. This delayed the eventual launch of the first x-ray telescope by half a decade

Who cares??? We slowed something down by a whole FIVE YEARS! It's not like this encompassed someone's entire career or anything. Or even most of someone's career.

Well, except for the guy who got run over by a truck during the five year delay. His career was pretty much ruined. Of course, being run over by a truck pretty much ruins your career even if there is an X-Ray telescope already in operation....

Re:Half a decade?

[Thanshin]

That was also my first reaction.

Beware thee who tries to compile a list of examples of wrong-thinking that have delayed an IT project for five years. For printing this book will consume all paper, all trees, and mean the end of life as we know it.

Re:How about all the rah-rah

[crdotson]

> For example, no one needs perfect ball bearings made in free-fall, the ones we make here are all good enough for all the jet engines in the world,
> and I thought 3D printing was going to be the next big thing, why do you need free-fall when you can position matter atom by atom?

And communications satellites! Talk about WORTHLESS!

This Just In

[tinytim]

Is this author saying that when scientists have to prioritize limited personel, time, and money based on incomplete information they sometimes arrive at a suboptimal solution? Shameful.

They should probably wait until they know everything about what they'd like to study before they start studying it - that would really speed things up.