Early History of the Telescope
April 7, 2023 9:38 AM Subscribe
In the popular mind, many people believe Galileo invented the telescope. He didn't ... he simply knew how to take advantage of a good thing. Jack Kramer, of the Lake County, Illinois, Astronomical Society lays it down how we got to see the stars so deeply.
One of my favorite memories of visiting India was seeing the Jantar Mantar in Jaipur. It's a giant astronomical observatory featuring 19 different instruments including a 90 foot tall sundial (accurate to 2 seconds) and a matched pair of bowl-shaped sky maps for observing specific stars. Look at this magnificent thing! The whole complex is an absolutely astonishing monument to astronomy and the raja who built it and the various temple priests who used it to make horoscope measurements were clearly highly expert in stellar observation.
Here's the interesting thing to me. The Jantar Mantar was built in the 1720s, 100 years after telescopes were a thing (or more, per the article). There was plenty of trade in scientific instruments and ideas between Europe and India at the time. The raja himself owned telescopes and used them. But they weren't really a big force in Indian astronomy at the time and there was no telescope built at the Jantar Mantar. It was like two parallel developments of a science. I'd love to read more about that.
posted by Nelson at 10:26 AM on April 7, 2023 [5 favorites]
Here's the interesting thing to me. The Jantar Mantar was built in the 1720s, 100 years after telescopes were a thing (or more, per the article). There was plenty of trade in scientific instruments and ideas between Europe and India at the time. The raja himself owned telescopes and used them. But they weren't really a big force in Indian astronomy at the time and there was no telescope built at the Jantar Mantar. It was like two parallel developments of a science. I'd love to read more about that.
posted by Nelson at 10:26 AM on April 7, 2023 [5 favorites]
In 1656 Christiaan Huygens made a telescope that was 23 feet long.
Sort of a footnote here: ca. 1657-1658 is when the telescope supposedly appears for the first time in Chinese literature in 十二樓 (Twelve Towers) by Li Yu. There's a story, anachronistically set in the 1300s, where someone mysteriously knows a bunch of stuff going on in the area, and it turns out that "Now, how could Ch'ü really see 'far and near'? It was by using an imported 'thousand-mile mirror,' that is, a telescope, bought in an antique store. When he first bought it, he thought to himself, 'I am young and single, and I must use this telescope to find the prettiest girl in the area. I will go to the top of a mountain and look into every household within the telescope's range.'"
Even more incidentally, Li Yu's The Carnal Prayer Mat (also ca. 1657) belongs on the short list of plausible candidates for science fiction novels avant la lettre, most of which have disqualifying features so it's just an interesting one to throw into the mix.
posted by Wobbuffet at 10:52 AM on April 7, 2023 [8 favorites]
Sort of a footnote here: ca. 1657-1658 is when the telescope supposedly appears for the first time in Chinese literature in 十二樓 (Twelve Towers) by Li Yu. There's a story, anachronistically set in the 1300s, where someone mysteriously knows a bunch of stuff going on in the area, and it turns out that "Now, how could Ch'ü really see 'far and near'? It was by using an imported 'thousand-mile mirror,' that is, a telescope, bought in an antique store. When he first bought it, he thought to himself, 'I am young and single, and I must use this telescope to find the prettiest girl in the area. I will go to the top of a mountain and look into every household within the telescope's range.'"
Even more incidentally, Li Yu's The Carnal Prayer Mat (also ca. 1657) belongs on the short list of plausible candidates for science fiction novels avant la lettre, most of which have disqualifying features so it's just an interesting one to throw into the mix.
posted by Wobbuffet at 10:52 AM on April 7, 2023 [8 favorites]
Sadly, this brief history leaves unmentioned the most important fact, that both the telescope as the microscope were invented by people from Middelburg, quite possibly by the same person, Sacharias (or Zacharias) Jansen.
Why, how did you guess Middelburg is my hometown?
posted by MartinWisse at 12:22 PM on April 7, 2023 [3 favorites]
Why, how did you guess Middelburg is my hometown?
posted by MartinWisse at 12:22 PM on April 7, 2023 [3 favorites]
Galileo was star craving mad.
posted by fairmettle at 3:13 PM on April 7, 2023 [5 favorites]
posted by fairmettle at 3:13 PM on April 7, 2023 [5 favorites]
Sadly, this brief history leaves unmentioned the most important fact, that both the telescope as the microscope were invented by people from Middelburg, quite possibly by the same person, Sacharias (or Zacharias) Jansen.
It does mention Zacharias Jansen, though it doesn't mention the microscope.
I've been thinking recently about the fact that almost all of the ideas people came up with before the invention of the telescope and microscope about the universe at small and large scales were completely wrong. With a couple of exceptions, you can dump it all in the trash - all sorts of cosmologies and explanations for disease and ideas about the nature of life and statements made with absolute certainty about heavens and hells. Just meaningless junk.
And then everything changed because of a few Dutch and northern Italian glass makers and grinders who liked tinkering.
posted by clawsoon at 4:33 PM on April 7, 2023 [4 favorites]
It does mention Zacharias Jansen, though it doesn't mention the microscope.
I've been thinking recently about the fact that almost all of the ideas people came up with before the invention of the telescope and microscope about the universe at small and large scales were completely wrong. With a couple of exceptions, you can dump it all in the trash - all sorts of cosmologies and explanations for disease and ideas about the nature of life and statements made with absolute certainty about heavens and hells. Just meaningless junk.
And then everything changed because of a few Dutch and northern Italian glass makers and grinders who liked tinkering.
posted by clawsoon at 4:33 PM on April 7, 2023 [4 favorites]
One of whom was Baruch Spinoza:
Spinoza earned a modest living from lens-grinding and instrument making, yet he was involved in important optical investigations of the day while living in Voorburg, through correspondence and friendships with scientist Christiaan Huygens and mathematician Johannes Hudde, including debate over microscope design with Huygens, favouring small objectives[75] and collaborating on calculations for a prospective 40-foot (12 m) focal length telescope which would have been one of the largest in Europe at the time.[76] He was known for making not just lenses but also telescopes and microscopes.[77] The quality of Spinoza's lenses was much praised by Christiaan Huygens, among others.[78] In fact, his technique and instruments were so esteemed that Constantijn Huygens ground a "clear and bright" telescope lens with focal length of 42 feet (13 m) in 1687 from one of Spinoza's grinding dishes, ten years after his death.[79] He was said by anatomist Theodor Kerckring to have produced an "excellent" microscope, the quality of which was the foundation of Kerckring's anatomy claims.[80] During his time as a lens and instrument maker, he was also supported by small but regular donations from close friends.[22]posted by jamjam at 9:17 PM on April 7, 2023 [1 favorite]
In related astronomical news, Huygens telescope flaws might have been due to his near sighted eyes. They could have been acting as corrective lenses for his own condition, which would be why they don’t seem as good as the other contemporaneous telescopes.
posted by autopilot at 1:31 AM on April 8, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by autopilot at 1:31 AM on April 8, 2023 [1 favorite]
Bears repeating that Andalucian Islamic contributions to what we now call math and optics were indispensable to the non-Muslim Europeans who built on their work.
"One of Islam’s most famous astronomers and scientific thinkers, Ibn al-Haytham, is known as 'the father of optics' because he was the first person to crack the code about how we perceive light. He figured out that light traveled in a straight line into our eyes but not out. For hundreds of years it was thought by people like Ptolemy that our eyes actually emitted light, like an interior flashlight. His work developed the camera obscura and eventually aided in the development of the telescope."
How Islamic Scholarship Birthed Modern Astronomy, Astronomy Magazine
posted by Sheydem-tants at 11:17 AM on April 8, 2023 [2 favorites]
"One of Islam’s most famous astronomers and scientific thinkers, Ibn al-Haytham, is known as 'the father of optics' because he was the first person to crack the code about how we perceive light. He figured out that light traveled in a straight line into our eyes but not out. For hundreds of years it was thought by people like Ptolemy that our eyes actually emitted light, like an interior flashlight. His work developed the camera obscura and eventually aided in the development of the telescope."
How Islamic Scholarship Birthed Modern Astronomy, Astronomy Magazine
posted by Sheydem-tants at 11:17 AM on April 8, 2023 [2 favorites]
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