examples:
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Al-Hasan ibn al-Haytham
an Egyptian polymath (born in Iraq) whose research in geometry and optics was influential into the 17th century; established experiments as the norm of proof in physics (died in 1040)
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Anaximander
a presocratic Greek philosopher and student of Thales who believed the universal substance to be infinity rather than something resembling ordinary objects (611-547 BC)
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Aristarchus of Samos
an ancient Greek astronomer who was one of the first to propose a heliocentric theory of the universe (circa 270 BC)
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Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel
German mathematician and astronomer who made accurate measurements of stellar distances and who predicted the existence on an 8th planet (1784-1846)
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Nathaniel Bowditch
United States mathematician and astronomer noted for his works on navigation (1773-1838)
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Tycho Brahe
Danish astronomer whose observations of the planets provided the basis for Kepler's laws of planetary motion (1546-1601)
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Anders Celsius
Swedish astronomer who devised the centigrade thermometer (1701-1744)
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Nicolaus Copernicus
Polish astronomer who produced a workable model of the solar system with the sun in the center (1473-1543)
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Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington
English astronomer remembered for his popular elucidation of relativity theory (1882-1944)
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Eratosthenes
Greek mathematician and astronomer who estimated the circumference of the earth and the distances to the Moon and sun (276-194 BC)
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Galileo Galilei
Italian astronomer and mathematician who was the first to use a telescope to study the stars; demonstrated that different weights descend at the same rate; perfected the refracting telescope that enabled him to make many discoveries (1564-1642)
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George Ellery Hale
United States astronomer who discovered that sunspots are associated with strong magnetic fields (1868-1938)
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Asaph Hall
United States astronomer who discovered Phobos and Deimos (the two satellites of Mars) (1829-1907)
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Edmond Halley
English astronomer who used Newton's laws of motion to predict the period of a comet (1656-1742)
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Sir Frederick William Herschel
English astronomer (born in Germany) who discovered infrared light and who catalogued the stars and discovered the planet Uranus (1738-1822)
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Sir John Frederick William Herschel
English astronomer (son of William Herschel) who extended the catalogue of stars to the southern hemisphere and did pioneering work in photography (1792-1871)
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Hipparchus
Greek astronomer and mathematician who discovered the precession of the equinoxes and made the first known star chart and is said to have invented trigonometry (second century BC)
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Sir William Huggins
English astronomer who pioneered spectroscopic analysis in astronomy and who discovered the red shift (1824-1910)
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Hypatia
Greek philosopher and astronomer; she invented the astrolabe (370-415)
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Johannes Kepler
German astronomer who first stated laws of planetary motion (1571-1630)
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Gerard Peter Kuiper
United States astronomer (born in the Netherlands) who studied the solar system and suggested in 1951 that there is a belt of comet-like debris at the edge of the solar system (1905-1973)
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Samuel Pierpoint Langley
United States astronomer and aviation pioneer who invented the bolometer and contributed to the design of early aircraft (1834-1906)
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Pierre Simon de Laplace
French mathematician and astronomer who formulated the nebular hypothesis concerning the origins of the solar system and who developed the theory of probability (1749-1827)
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Sir Alfred Charles Bernard Lovell
English astronomer who pioneered radio astronomy (born in 1913)
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Percival Lowell
United States astronomer whose studies of Mars led him to conclude that Mars was inhabited (1855-1916)
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Maria Mitchell
United States astronomer who studied sunspots and nebulae (1818-1889)
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Johann Muller
German mathematician and astronomer (1436-1476)
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Simon Newcomb
United States astronomer (1835-1909)
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Omar Khayyam
Persian poet and mathematician and astronomer whose poetry was popularized by Edward Fitzgerald's translation (1050-1123)
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Jan Hendrix Oort
Dutch astronomer who proved that the galaxy is rotating and proposed the existence of the Oort cloud (1900-1992)
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Benjamin Peirce
United States mathematician and astronomer remembered for his studies of Uranus and Saturn and Neptune (1809-1880)
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Claudius Ptolemaeus
Alexandrian astronomer (of the 2nd century) who proposed a geocentric system of astronomy that was undisputed until the late Renaissance
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David Rittenhouse
United States astronomer said to have built the first telescope made in America; also the first director of the United States Mint (1732-1796)
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Henry Norris Russell
United States astronomer who developed a theory of stellar evolution (1877-1957)
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Giovanni Virginio Schiaparelli
Italian astronomer who first noted lines (which he called canals) on the surface of Mars (1835-1910)
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Harlow Shapley
United States astronomer (1885-1972)
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Willem de Sitter
Dutch astronomer who calculated the size of the universe and suggested that it is expanding (1872-1934)
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Thales of Miletus
a presocratic Greek philosopher and astronomer (who predicted an eclipse in 585 BC) who was said by Aristotle to be the founder of physical science; he held that all things originated in water (624-546 BC)
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Clyde William Tombaugh
United States astronomer who discovered the planet Pluto (1906-1997)
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Sir Fred Hoyle
an English astrophysicist and advocate of the steady state theory of cosmology; described processes of nucleosynthesis inside stars (1915-2001)
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Edwin Powell Hubble
United States astronomer who discovered that (as the universe expands) the speed with which nebulae recede increases with their distance from the observer (1889-1953)
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Georges Henri Lemaitre
Belgian cosmologist who proposed the big-bang theory of the origin of the universe (1894-1966)