Dark Night Sky: Olbers Paradox

It was long before science became compartmentalized. Professions could freely intermingle and overlap. Wilhelm Olbers was a German physician who enjoyed exploring the night sky with his telescope. His work on comets and asteroids earned him a fairly respectable niche in astronomy, still he continued to be a physician. But something about the night sky kept bothering him. Almost towards the end of this career he brought it in the open. In 1826 he wrote a paper and asked the question