TIL that William Herschel, the ICS officer who first introduced fingerprinting as a formal contract identification method in Calcutta 1858 was the grandson of the William Herschel who discovered Uranus in 1781. The interesting thing was that somebody had to figure out that fingerprints are not just unique but stable over time, required for use in long-term contracts. Uniqueness alone was known since antiquity in China and use for authentication seems to date back to like 200BC, but the long-term stability seems to me to be the key insight since it’s not obvious, given how much we change physically over a lifetime

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fingerprint#History

Also, not many people know this but the modern fingerprint classification system used in criminal detection was initially developed in Calcutta. This should be considered one of the founding events of modern cryptography. The og hash function.

TIL that William Herschel, the ICS officer who first introduced fingerprinting as a formal contract identification method in Calcutta 1858 was the grandson of the William Herschel who discovered Uranus in 1781. The interesting thing was that somebody had to figure out that fingerprints are not just unique but stable over time, required for use in long-term contracts. Uniqueness alone was known since antiquity in China and use for authentication seems to date back to like 200BC, but the long-term stability seems to me to be the key insight since it’s not obvious, given how much we change physically over a lifetime

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fingerprint#History

Also, not many people know this but the modern fingerprint classification system used in criminal detection was initially developed in Calcutta. This should be considered one of the founding events of modern cryptography. The og hash function.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Classification_System

Blogger at ribbonfarm.com, running summerofprotocols.com, host of /gloom ☀️

Mind blown by the connection between these two Herschels

Who knew that the discovery of Uranus and the development of fingerprinting were linked by family ties? 
It just goes to show that innovation can run in the family, and that curiosity can lead to incredible breakthrough