In this answer to Can I write a systematic review as an undergraduate and get it published in a journal? in Academia SE I recounted my memory of an experience from circa 1980:
I had an initially maddening experience in an undergraduate independent project; it was for credit and approved, and I sought out the department expert on the subject. They gave me no helpful information and a single very old reference from 20 years earlier and told me to "muddle through".
At first I was taken aback, but as soon as I hit the journals I had the time of my life! This is back when "hitting the journals" meant carting a new 50 pounds of bound volumes to your desk in the library every hour or two, lots of little ripped pieces of paper marking pages to be photocopied or read, and pages of scribbled lists of what to go look for next.
It was incredibly educational! I saw the drama of reported discoveries, corrections, alternative interpretations, theories, new theories, unfold before my eyes in a way that is almost impossible to see any other way (except for a few cases that make it to TV etc.)
Forty years later my brain has no doubt embellished the experience, but I remember a lot of observational work in South Africa, and at least some degree of disagreements or disputes on mechanisms.
So I'd like to ask this somewhat amorphous and poorly formulated question in hopes I can now get to the bottom of what I was reading about:
Question: What is the history, significance and "drama" (if any) of T-Tauri stars, especially the early bits?
Wikipedia's T-Tauri star; History in its entirety:
While T Tauri itself was discovered in 1852, the T Tauri class of stars were initially defined by Alfred Harrison Joy in 1945.2
2Joy, Alfred H. (1945). "T Tauri Variable Stars". The Astrophysical Journal. 102: 168–195.
