Editing South West England (section)

===Scientific heritage===
[[William Herschel]], previously a clarinet player, of Bath discovered [[infrared]] radiation on 11 February 1800, and the planet [[Uranus]] in March 1781; he had made important improvements to the [[reflecting telescope]] by increasing the mirror diameter. Herschel then built a 20-ft reflecting telescope and invented the [[star count]], working out that the [[Milky Way]] is a disc, which he called a ''grindstone'', and that it is a galaxy. Sir [[Arthur C. Clarke]] of [[Minehead]] invented the idea of artificial [[satellite]]s; he sent a letter to [[Harry Wexler]] who then developed the first [[weather satellite]] [[TIROS-1]]. Sir [[Arthur Eddington]] of Weston-super-Mare was the first to realise that [[nuclear fusion]] powered the Sun; at the 1920 [[British Science Association|British Association]] meeting he said that the Sun converted hydrogen into helium, although the mechanism was not known until 1933. [[James Bradley]] was an important astronomer from Gloucestershire, who discovered the [[aberration of light]].

[[Jan Ingenhousz]], the Dutch biologist, discovered [[photosynthesis]] in 1779 at [[Bowood House]] in Wiltshire; on 1 August 1774, [[Joseph Priestley]] discovered oxygen there too. A fossil of the oldest ancestor of the [[Tyrannosaurus]] was found in Gloucestershire; [[Mary Anning]] was a famous fossil collector from [[Lyme Regis]]. [[Edward Jenner]], pioneer of vaccination, was from Gloucestershire.