VMs: RE: Re: Kircher's Moon

["David R. Jones" <drjones@xxxxxxx>]

Greetings

>Individual stars were not resolved in other galaxies until 1917,
and it took the 100 inch Mt. Wilson telescope to do so. It
wasn't until 1924 that convincing evidence was presented
that nebulae were other galaxies.


Correct but Immanual Kant suggested it in 1755 ("Universal Natural
History and Theory of the Heavens, or an Essay on the Constitution and
Mechanical Origin of the Entire World-Edifice Treated According to
Newtonian Principles"), from speculations regarding the apparent spiral
structure.  Kant certainly had telescopic observations to base his
theory of "Island Universes" on, but not, of course, those as precise as
the later Mt. Wilson observations that fixed the matter, once and for
all.  It seems also that the mystic Immanuel Swedenborg later came to
the same conclusions (through his visions), though I'm not sure if he
was influenced directly by Kant's ideas. 

David R. Jones


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