The English Mathematician Who Saw Sunspots Six Months Before Galileo and Published Nothing
Thomas Harriot observed sunspots in December 1610 — months before Galileo's published priority claim — telescopically observed the Moon weeks before Galileo's *Sidereus Nuncius*, and worked out the law of refraction twenty years before Snell. He published almost none of it. He died in 1621 of nasal cancer leaving over 8,000 pages of unpublished manuscripts.
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