Halley, Edmond

History

Edmund Halley (1656–1742) was a multifaceted English scientist, fellow of the Royal Society (1678) and Royal Astronomer (1720), which made significant contributions on mathematics, astronomy, navigation and geophysics. Halley’s name will remain in history largely due to his work of 1705 on the motion of comets. The similarity that he founded between the orbital elements for the comets seen in 1531, 1607, and 1682 led him to suggest that this comet, that same comet that would one day bear his name, would return in December 1758. In fact the comet was observed on 25 December 1758 (very slightly later than Halley expected).

Halley’s work in astronomy is not restricted to the movement of comets. He made important works in stellar astronomy, having been the first to accurately cataloging the south sky hemisphere. And he was also the first to propose using transits of Mercury and Venus to determine the Earth-Sun distance and therefore the scale of the solar system. He was very...