Abstract
The astronomical consensus in 1900 was that there were no island-universes beyond the Milky Way. Earth stood with a single Solar System, within a single galaxy that made up the universe. The extent of the universe was the Milky Way. Even though hundreds of years had passed since Copernicus and, more importantly, new technologies had transformed astronomical science in the nineteenth century, the belief in a closed, finite universe composed of one galaxy persisted. The universe of Copernicus and Newton was more or less the one that existed in 1900.
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Schultz, D. (2012). The Andromeda Nebula and the Great Island-Universe Debate. In: The Andromeda Galaxy and the Rise of Modern Astronomy. Astronomers' Universe. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-3049-0_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-3049-0_6
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