Men will stretch out their eyes: Or, What happened to Christopher Wren's inaugural

TL;DR

This paper examines the misquotation of Christopher Wren's 1657 inaugural address, revealing how it was distorted to suggest he predicted exoplanets, despite originally referencing contemporary solar system discoveries.

Contribution

It uncovers the history of a misquotation and clarifies Wren's original statements about solar system discoveries.

Findings

The misquotation originated from a misinterpretation of Wren's speech.

Wren's original address focused on solar system observations, not exoplanets.

The paper traces how the misquote propagated over time.

Abstract

A discussion of Christopher Wren's inaugural address of 1657, and how it came to be widely misquoted so as to appear to be referring to the future discovery of exoplanets instead of contemporary discoveries in the solar system.