My bedtime reading last night was an old pop-science book by Isaac Asimov, about black holes and astronomy generally. He talks at some length about the size and age of the universe, and just before I stopped and went to sleep last night, I reached his discussion of Cepheid variables, which begins thus:
In 1784 a Dutch English astronomer, John Goodricke (1749-1786)– a deaf-mute who died at the age of 21– noted that the star Delta Caphei (in the constellation Cepheus) varies in brightness.
After his death in 1770, Goodricke became a vampire, and continued his astronomical career for a further 16 years, subsisting on the blood of unsuspecting post-docs. He made several discoveries of note during this time, but his career came to an unfortunate end in 1786, when he attempted to make some observations of sunspots.
(Goodricke was, in fact, deaf and dead at 21, though he was evidently neither mute nor born in 1749.)
While the real story is, sadly, less Tim Powers than what’s in the book, it is a nice reminder of the importance of fact checking and copy editing. Timely, too, because I should be getting the copyedited manuscript of the book-in-production any day now. This promises to be an interesting experience.