>Overall its mind blowing to me that at some point, not too long ago, we had people able to figure out things like the mass of some body they could barely see and deduce how it affects other bodies in the system.
I mean, it's mostly math. Before we had an excess of computer power, it was basically plug-n-chug with a room full of grad students. It's not something that any one impressive human just eyeballs and know's "ah, that planet floats in a bathtub" at first glance.
Which isn't to say there weren't scarily capable people! If you want an example of one of the people that for me inspires the type pf awe you're talking about. Bob Farquhar
That man, had to have had either one of the most beautiful mental processes, or horrifying, in that actually running the kind of math he did was preferable to anything else.
I mean, it's mostly math. Before we had an excess of computer power, it was basically plug-n-chug with a room full of grad students. It's not something that any one impressive human just eyeballs and know's "ah, that planet floats in a bathtub" at first glance.
Which isn't to say there weren't scarily capable people! If you want an example of one of the people that for me inspires the type pf awe you're talking about. Bob Farquhar
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_W._Farquhar
That man, had to have had either one of the most beautiful mental processes, or horrifying, in that actually running the kind of math he did was preferable to anything else.