The universe, decanted

• Autores: Nigel Henbest
• Localización: New scientist, ISSN 0262-4079, Nº. 3052-3053, 2015, págs. 73-75
• Idioma: inglés
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen

  • Henbest details the history of stargazing that owes a lot to high-end tableware. Sir William Lower may well have been indulging in a post-prandial snifter or two when he wrote of what he had seen through his "Dutch trunke". The moon's surface, the English nobleman reported in 1609, "appears like a tart that his cooke made him last weeke; here a vaine of bright stuffe, and there of darke, and so confusedlie all over." His enthusiasm was part of a craze for astronomical observation that swept Europe in the early 17th century following the invention of the telescope. The first mention of a "device for seeing things far away as if they were nearby" comes ma patent filed in 1608 by the optician Hans Lipperhey of the Dutch city of Middelburg.