Physics Colloquium Series, Fall 2009 and beyond

In 1781, William Herschel became the first person in human history to discover a new planet. This feat was enough to make his reputation and enable him to give up his day job to concentrate on the heavens full-time. But he believed--correctly, in retrospect--that it wasn't nearly as important as his real astronomical work. Working alongside his sister Caroline, William Herschel was the first astronomer to think about the universe in the same way astrophysicists do today.