Harlow Shapley: The Father Of The Solar System

Harlow Shapley was a very well established man who had made significant discoveries in the world of science. It was Shapley that had found out that the sun was not, in fact, the center of the universe but rather 30,000 light years away, an important piece of information embedded within us from as soon as we start learning about our solar system. But, before going down as one of the most historic men in science, he had lived a life as interesting as the concepts he had explored.

Born in Nashville, Missouri on November 2nd of 1885, Harlow Shapley was the son of a locally known farmer, as well as school teacher, Willis Shapley, and his mother, Sarah Stowell. Harlow, attending a local schoolhouse, received a basic fifth-grade level of education. It wasn’t soon after that that Shapley was employed in a business course at “Daily Sun” briefly before becoming a police reporter in Joplin, of his hometown in Missouri. Shapley had taken this up as a way to gain experience to apply to a high school in Carthage, but was turned down and was told he was unprepared. As an alternative, Harlow (and his brother as well) had begun to attend the Presbyterian Carthage Collegiate Institute, where he graduated after only two semesters.

In 1910, Shapley obtained his Bachelor 's degree, in 1911, he received his Masters degree, and in 1913, his Doctoral