In 1676 a great impulse was given to optics by astronomy.  In that year Olav Roemer, a learned Dane, was engaged at the Observatory of Paris in observing the eclipses of Jupiter’s moons.  The planet, whose distance from the sun is 475,693,000 miles, has four satellites.  We are now only concerned with the one nearest to the planet.  Roemer watched this moon, saw it move round the planet, plunge into Jupiter’s shadow, behaving like a lamp suddenly extinguished:  then at the other edge of the shadow he saw it reappear, like a lamp suddenly lighted.  The moon thus acted the part of a signal light to the astronomer, and enabled him to tell exactly its time of revolution.  The period between two successive lightings up of the lunar lamp he found to be 42 hours, 28 minutes, and 35 seconds.

This measurement of time was so accurate, that having determined the moment when the moon emerged from the shadow, the moment of its hundredth appearance could also be determined.  In fact, it would be 100 times 42 hours, 28 minutes, 35 seconds, after the first observation.

Roemer’s first observation was made when the earth was in the part of its orbit nearest Jupiter.  About six months afterwards, the earth being then at the opposite side of its orbit, when the little moon ought to have made its hundredth appearance, it was found unpunctual, being fully 15 minutes behind its calculated time.  Its appearance, moreover, had been growing gradually later, as the earth retreated towards the part of its orbit most distant from Jupiter.  Roemer reasoned thus:  ’Had I been able to remain at the other side of the earth’s orbit, the moon might have appeared always at the proper instant; an observer placed there would probably have seen the moon 15 minutes ago, the retardation in my case being due to the fact that the light requires 15 minutes to travel from the place where my first observation was made to my present position.’

This flash of genius was immediately succeeded by another.  ’If this surmise be correct,’ Roemer reasoned, ’then as I approach Jupiter along the other side of the earth’s orbit, the retardation ought to become gradually less, and when I reach the place of my first observation, there ought to be no retardation at all.’  He found this to be the case, and thus not only proved that light required time to pass through space, but also determined its rate of propagation.

The velocity of light, as determined by Roemer, is 192,500 miles in a second.

For a time, however, the observations and reasonings of Roemer failed to produce conviction.  They were doubted by Cassini, Fontenelle, and Hooke.  Subsequently came the unexpected corroboration of Roemer by the English astronomer, Bradley, who noticed that the fixed stars did not really appear to be fixed, but that they describe little orbits in the heavens every year.  The result perplexed him, but Bradley had a mind open to suggestion, and capable of seeing,