OAS NOVEMBER 20013 ASTRONOMY EZINE VOL 2 | Page 13

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selves became household names. For example Charles Darwin was elected 3 years before his trip on
the Beagle, Edmund Halley was elected before he received his degree from Oxford. William Henry
Fox Talbot was elected two years before he invented Photography.
It is hard to write an article of this nature for an astronomy magazine keeping it on an astronomy
bias, however this as I am sure you have discovered is not easy to do since the Royal Society had
interests and did great things in various fields not just Astronomy.
One could not discuss the Royal Society in The OAS Word without mentioning something about
Isaac Newton. To give Sir Isaac Newton the treatment he deserves (though he was not a very nice
man) would require another article.
To delve further into the Royal Society would require a book in itself, never mind a magazine article.
However it seems to be fitting to conclude by saying:
The Royal Society still has as pivotal role to play today in Science. In fact as a keen scientist myself I
have often thought that after winning the Nobel Prize and gaining membership to the Royal Society one
has reached the pinnacle of their career.
For the Society now sponsors
350 Research fellowships
awards, many medals and prizes, is involved in countless debates on all manner of subjects.
Supports some 3000 scientists
in their work and runs the Summer Science Exhibition.
References
Seeing Further, By Bill Bryson,
published Mixed Sources, 2010

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