{"id":869,"date":"2015-11-15T08:56:08","date_gmt":"2015-11-15T13:56:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/curves\/?p=869"},"modified":"2015-11-16T18:39:48","modified_gmt":"2015-11-16T23:39:48","slug":"herschel-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/curves\/2015\/11\/herschel-day.html","title":{"rendered":"Herschel Day"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/curves\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/1280px-William_Herschel01.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-870 alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/curves\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/1280px-William_Herschel01-245x300.jpg\" alt=\"1280px-William_Herschel01\" width=\"245\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/curves\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/1280px-William_Herschel01-245x300.jpg 245w, https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/curves\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/1280px-William_Herschel01-837x1024.jpg 837w, https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/curves\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/1280px-William_Herschel01.jpg 1280w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 245px) 100vw, 245px\" \/><\/a>Today is the 277<sup>th<\/sup> birthday of William Herschel, a man who shows us just how vast the change has been in the fortunes of the arts and sciences.<\/p>\n<p>Herschel has often been dubbed the Father of Modern Astronomy, the first person to discover a planet unknown to the ancients, a fellow renowned for building some of the finest telescopes of his day.<\/p>\n<p>But his day was not an optimal time for scientists.\u00a0 If you hadn\u2019t inherited a fortune, your best hope was to find another profession for paying the bills.<\/p>\n<p>So how did William pay his bills?\u00a0 By composing symphonies, of course: twenty-four of them.\u00a0 That and playing the oboe, violin, harpsichord and organ, and training his sister Caroline to sing his sacred works.<\/p>\n<p>In my lifetime, I\u2019ve met hundreds of composers \u2013 many of them quite well-known and highly regarded &#8212; who made their living from something other than writing music.\u00a0 But I\u2019ve never met a scientist who paid the rent by composing.\u00a0 It\u2019s a fun thought.<\/p>\n<p>Incidentally, given his accomplishments, it\u2019s safe to assume that Herschel had an outstanding ear and an outstanding eye, but I suspect his olfactory sense was not quite so discerning.\u00a0 The lenses on his telescopes were fashioned with molds made out of horse dung he collected especially for that purpose.<\/p>\n<p>Can\u2019t leave the subject without noting that sister Caroline ended up being a very successful astronomer herself, discovering several nebulae and comets.\u00a0 All of which proves something about singing for your supper, I\u2019m sure.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Today is the 277th birthday of William Herschel, a man who shows us just how vast the change has been in the fortunes of the arts and sciences. Herschel has often been dubbed the Father of Modern Astronomy, the first person to discover a planet unknown to the ancients, a fellow renowned for building some [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":870,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-869","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/curves\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/869","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/curves\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/curves\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/curves\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/curves\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=869"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/curves\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/869\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":871,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/curves\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/869\/revisions\/871"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/curves\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/870"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/curves\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/curves\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/curves\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}