Römer’s colleagues were right to be astounded in his estimation, as even today, his estimation of the speed of light is considered to be amazingly accurate, considering it was made 300 years before the existence of both lasers, the internet, and Conan O’Brien’s hair. Okay so it was 80,000 kilometres per second too slow, but given the state of science and technology at the time, that is remarkably impressive, particularly given he was primarily just working off a hunch to begin with.
What’s even more amazing is that the reason for Römer’s estimation being a little too slow is thought to have less to do with any mistake on his part and more to do with the fact that the commonly accepted diameter of the Earth’s and Jupiter’s orbits were off when Römer did his calculations. Meaning yes, Römer was only wrong because other people weren’t as awesome at science as he was. In fact, if you slot the correct orbit numbers into what is thought to be his original calculations from reports before his papers were destroyed in the aforementioned fire, his estimation is nearly spot on.
So even though he was technically wrong and even though James Bradley came up with a more accurate number in 1729, Römer will go down in history as the guy who first proved that the speed of light was not infinite and worked out a reasonably accurate ballpark figure on what the exact speed was by observing the movements of a speck orbiting a giant ball of gas positioned about 780 million kilometres away. That right there ladies and gentlemen is how a badass, lacking lasers, does science.
(collected)
