Category: Discoveries

Annie Russell Maunder (1868-1947) and her husband Edward Walter Maunder (1851-1928) were the first scientists to analyse records of sunspot activity and identify a specific ‘grand solar minimum’. This natural phenomenon, lasting from 1645 to 1715, is known as the Maunder Minimum.

The sun is a seething mass of activity which waxes and wanes on an eleven-year cycle. A normal ‘minimum’ is a quiet time for the sun, as it has fewer sunspots, thereby producing less ultra-violet light. The Maunder Minimum was a prolonged minimum and the Maunders noticed that it coincided with a cooler period in the weather ~ the River Thames froze over several times, for example. Scientists now believe there is a definite cause-and-effect on the weather, as well as changes in the upper atmosphere which are potentially dangerous for aircraft and spacecraft.

No-one can confidently predict when the next grand solar minimum will occur, but it is hypothesised that it will be shorter than the seventy-year Maunder Minimum. However, we know from the diary of Samuel Pepys that life continued as usual during that period, despite the cold. An interesting summary of the weather at that time can be found on Netweather.

(Image of the frozen River Thames in 1683 painted by Thomas Wyke: Wikimedia / Public domain)

Born in Devon, Sir Walter Raleigh (1552/4-1618) seemed to be following in the footsteps of Sir Francis Drake as a swashbuckling hero, fighting against the Spanish and sailing the Atlantic to explore new lands. However, he caught the eye of Queen Elizabeth I whilst quashing an uprising in Ireland in 1580 and she demanded that he cease his reckless adventures.

She made him a wealthy landowner and knighted him in 1585. He charmed her with his poetry and extrovert personality, but this changed when she discovered he had a wife and baby. She put them in the Tower of London, the first of three imprisonments for Raleigh. After this, he was permitted to venture into the wilds of South America searching for ‘Eldorado’ and gold. He discovered a little gold but no magical kingdoms and on his final trip his son was killed by the Spanish while he lagged behind.

Raleigh is credited with popularising the potato and tobacco, which had been introduced from Spain, and he is viewed as a pioneering explorer to North America, naming Virginia after the Queen, although he mainly sent other people there. His anti-Spanish foolhardiness was his downfall and King James I had him beheaded for treason.

(Image [cropped]: Ben Sutherland at Flickr.com / CC BY 2.0)

Sir Joseph John (‘J.J.‘) Thomson was born in 1856 in Lancashire. He excelled in mathematics and took his degrees at Cambridge University, where he became a professor. Always interested in science, in 1896 he decided to start some experiments with cathode ray tubes, to which he applied electrical and magnetic fields. By analysing the rays’ deflections, he was the first to discover a sub-atomic particle ~ the electron ~ and that it is negatively charged. He published his findings in 1897 and they became known as the ‘plum pudding model’.

At that time scientists believed that the hydrogen atom was the tiniest particle in existence, but Thomson showed that his cathode ray ‘corpuscles’, or electrons, were a thousand times lighter. It has still not been possible to split an electron or even see it, as it circles round the atom’s nucleus so fast and is so stupendously small.

Thomson was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1906 and was knighted in 1908. It was from his discovery that today’s world of electricity and electronics stems. He died in 1940, three years after proudly witnessing his son, George Paget Thomson (1892-1975), win the same Nobel Prize in Physics for work also on electrons, this time investigating their wave-like properties.

(Image of J.J. Thomson’s cathode ray apparatus: Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 2.0)

Two British astronomers discovered the existence of pulsars with a radio telescope at Cambridge University in 1967. Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell, born in County Armagh in 1943, was a PhD student supervised by Cornishman Professor Antony Hewish (1924-2021), and although it was Hewish who had set up the research, Bell Burnell was the first to spot an anomaly ~ a regular, ticking ‘noise’.

At first, there was talk of it being communication from aliens, hence the name LGM1 (‘Little Green Men 1’) for this first pulsar. On further investigation, they found it to be a small, extremely dense, fast-spinning neutron star which was emitting beams of radiation. It is now known that there are thousands of these whizzing about. Their presence is being used by astro-physicists to test Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity.

Both Hewish and Bell Burnell have received many prestigious awards. Hewish was a joint recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1974 and some believed that Bell Burnell should have been included. On receiving a prize of £2,300,000 in 2018, she donated the whole amount to fund scholarships for female and ethnic minority students in physics research.

(Image: Elmi1966 at Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0)

It is said that the Welsh Prince Madoc went on a voyage of discovery and found North America, either in 1170 or 562. There is no hard evidence for the later date but a few historians maintain that the earlier date can be verified by inscriptions and writings they have found on both sides of the Atlantic.

Either way, Prince Madoc’s story is impressive. In the 1170 version, he and one of his brothers (he was one of nineteen children) took to the sea to escape sibling rivalry after their father’s death. They took ten ships, landed somewhere on the east coast of North America and were thrilled to see such an expanse of land with so few inhabitants. Madoc returned to Wales to pick up more emigrants and they never came back again.

In the 562 version, Madoc was already at sea when a huge storm pushed him off course. After ten years of living in Kentucky, he returned in 572. In 574 he persuaded King Arthur II to return with him and seventy thousand emigrants, plus animals, in seven hundred boats. Welsh-speaking native Americans using Welsh-style coracles are an extraordinary addition to the story, but sadly have not yet been located.

(Image: liliy2025 at pixabay.com)

The British Isles are strewn with hundreds of ancient standing-stones ~ huge stones that appear to have been deliberately placed upright in the ground ~ and the Grade I Listed Rudston Monolith is the tallest of the lot. It measures seventeen feet around the base and twenty-five feet in height, which may be mirrored underground. A Christian church was built next to it and the awe-inspiring stone would have had a dreadful story of divine punishment attached to it.

Rudston village in Yorkshire is one of the country’s oldest settlements and the monolith stands on a small hill in the centre of various archaeological finds. It consists of gritstone, indicating that it was brought to Rudston, either by a glacier or a team of strong men from Cayton Bay, ten miles away, where gritstone could be quarried.

Theories on the purpose of standing-stones include the following:-

• alignment with the stars and the moon for mystical, ritual or electro-magnetic reasons
• colour symbolism ~ the gritstone of the Rudston Monolith apparently glows orange with the sun in the right position
• shadow mysticism ~ sunlight and moonlight cause long, pointed shadows in directions which may have held a significance
• landmarks for processions or meetings.

(Image: Maigheach-gheal at geograph.org.uk / CC BY-SA 2.0)

The main achievement of Sir Francis Drake (1540-1596) was to sail around the world in 1577-80, but there is also a suggestion that he was one of the explorers who saw giant humans on the coast of North America. These were red-haired and over nine feet tall. What is more well-known is that the Spanish viewed him as a pirate, a thorn in their side, whilst to the British he was a swashbuckling hero who brought home enough gold to pay off the national debt and more.

Drake’s seafaring adventures began in the early 1560s and by 1568 he was a ship’s captain. After a series of successes against Spanish and Portuguese ships, Drake set off west in 1577 to find a new shipping route to Asia. After quelling a mutiny and losing his four companion ships, he rounded the tip of South America in the Golden Hind and was the first Briton to enter the Pacific.

He travelled up the west coast, plundering Spanish-held ports as he went and filling the ship with treasure. He continued north in the hope of finding a western passage round the top of North America. Failing in this, he turned back and continued westwards.

(Image of statue of Sir Francis Drake: Roger Cornfoot at geograph.org.uk / CC BY-SA 2.0)

Professor Sir Fred Hoyle, FRS (1915-2001) was born in Yorkshire and became a mathematician, astronomer and cosmologist. He frequently broke ranks with the established scientific institutions with his non-conformist theories. He coined the term ‘Big Bang’ in one of his radio shows whilst debunking the idea that the universe suddenly appeared in a massive explosion out of nothing.

In 1944 he made a visit to the USA, where he learnt more about nuclear fission. On his return to Britain he applied this to the study of the structure of stars and supernovae. His discoveries led him to refute favoured concepts such as Darwin‘s ‘Theory of Evolution’. He investigated the alternative panspermia hypothesis on the beginning of life on Earth. This says that cosmic dust landed on the planet, particularly from comets, and these microbes continue to be deposited and affect evolution and bring viruses. He called this the ‘Cosmicrobia’ theory. In this video, however, a colleague hints at Hoyle’s conclusion that the creation of life was not accidental:-

Another ground-breaking proposal was that Stonehenge was built to synchronise with the Earth’s movement in relation to the Sun and the Moon. Mocked at the time, this is now accepted as a viable possibility.

(Image: pixabay.com)

A genius of his time, Robert Hooke is known today for Hooke’s Law, as explained in this video by ‘GCSE and A Level Physics Online’:-

Robert Hooke (1635-1703) was born on the Isle of Wight and soon showed a talent both for handling delicate mechanisms, like those of clocks, and for drawing. He went to Oxford University and later became the first Curator of The Royal Society of London (for Improving Natural Knowledge), a very demanding position but one which enabled him to develop the emerging field of experimental science. Indeed, he is said to be its ‘father’.

In 1665 he published the ground-breaking ‘Micrographia’ (see featured image), for which he was the author-illustrator. This was an amazing collection of things he had seen through the newly-invented microscope (to which, of course, he had added his own improvements!). It was in this book’s text that the term ‘cell’ was first used for the building blocks of a creature or material. Sadly, Hooke’s wide-ranging investigations led to a clash with the up-and-coming Isaac Newton, who rather spitefully destroyed Hooke’s possessions after his death.

(Image: Wellcome Trust at Wikimedia Commons / CC BY 4.0)

In 1938-9 Basil Brown carried out a series of archaeological digs in Sutton Hoo, Suffolk, on a group of Saxon-style (or arguably British-style) burial mounds. Two of these contained ships and the largest revealed an unspoilt treasure trove of gold and silver tableware, weapons, armour and coins from the 7th century. It is assumed that a ‘ship burial’ was afforded to a king or other important person (as opposed to a ‘boat burial’ for, say, a warrior).

From the imprints left by the rotted timber and the position of the rivets, Brown could see that the ship was 90ft by 14ft, the largest ever found. It had been hauled up from the nearby river and put in a long trench. A chamber had been built in the centre to house the coffin and precious goods. Everything was then buried under a mound of soil. No sign of a body remained because the acidity of the soil had completely dissolved it, experts say.

The famous Sutton Hoo helmet was pieced together over several years and is now the iconic symbol of the find. It can be seen in the British Museum with other Sutton Hoo artefacts.

(Image: Leo Reynolds at Flickr.com / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)