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It's amazing to think that with nothing more than a telescope and careful timing, he managed to get so close to the actual speed of light.

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Well, also knowledge of the distances between the objects involved (at least the Earth and Jupiter), which in turn depended on a series of further investigations.

Which is not to denigrate the achievement, but if I were to drop you on an alien world with only a telescope and an accurate time keeper, you're not going to be able to recreate it.

> if I were to drop you on an alien world with only a telescope and an accurate time keeper, you're not going to be able to recreate it.

But you can relatively easily derive the distances too with timekeeper and telescope, by applying Keplers laws?

One can, in principle. Most people lack the talent. (It's a skill that almost anyone could learn, but that doesn't make it a skill everyone has.)

That’s not the definition of talent

From what I've seen, talent is the tendency for a person to naturally develop a skill, if left alone to do so. It isn't some kind of intrinsic capability.

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