Edmond Halley

Edmond Halley was an English astronomer/scientist. A few of you might have heard of his name. The famous comet which can be seen every 75 years(approx) is named after him, Halley's Comet. 

He became a fellow of the Royal Society in 1678. This guy is so cool that a comet has been named after him.

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He is famous for his works with Issac Newton and Robert Hooke. Without him, the base of modern science,Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, would still be unpublished. At the time Newton was afraid that Robert Hooke would steal his ideas like he did with his earlier work. So, he kept it a secret until Halley came to him with some questions. Newton claimed that he had all the mathematical proofs of the cosmos but Halley did not believe him. After few days a letter was delivered to Halley's home containing the first few opening page of modern science. It contained universal laws of the motion,gravity for the whole cosmos. He knew this was ground breaking stuff and requested Newton to compile it onto a book for publishing it. Few problems came out while trying to publish it but he was determined man on a mission. Halley edited and published the book at his own expense.

If he was not remembered for his work with Newton, he would have been remembered for many of his own work. But the irony is that he is most remembered for the work he did not actually do,he just predicted it. After the publication of the book,he took on 3 scientific expedition to solve the navigation problems for the British navy. He used this opportunity to map the first magnetic field of the earth. He also perfected the diving bell ,which are used in salvage operations, personally testing his own inventions. He also invented the weather map and the symbol for indicating winds are still used today.

Halley was the first to realize that all the stars in our galaxy are in motion. He also hunted down every astronomical observation of a comet across Europe without using any search engines but just his books and mind. Halley took the observation of each comet and calculated the path of the comet using the math devised by Newton. He discovered that comets were bound to the sun in long elliptical orbits and he was the first to know that 3 comets sightings in the past were of the same comet which returned every 75 years. For decades religion took comets as a bad omen, just a prop to manipulate people but this discovery shattered those faiths. He was without any doubt a true prophet who could predict the sighting of a comet. 

"In the year 1456 ... a Comet was seen passing Retrograde between the Earth and the sun... Hence I dare venture to foretell, that it will return again in the year 1758."