Galileo's Glassworks: The Telescope and the Mirror
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Fascinating...Eileen Reeves shows just how tangled with myth and legend the history of the telescope, and Galileo's pioneering use of it, actually was...Ms. Reeves recounts this complicated history with great flair. She is more interested in the missteps and the stumbles that accompanied momentous discoveries than in their scientific significance, and rightly so. The tale of Galileo's telescope is, as it turns out, an intensely human one. Sometimes, amid the intrigue and the campaigns of slander and distortion which surrounded Galileo's discoveries, it seems as if the chief obstacle to a clear-sighted gaze at the heavens lay not in better optics but in piercing dense clouds of misconception. As Ms. Reeves shows, Galileo was no isolated genius; he built on the scattered findings of his predecessors. To certain contemporaries, he appeared as a modern Prometheus, but he was also a shrewd operator, as ambitious as he was inquisitive. There was something both sublime and stubborn in his nosiness, yet in the end it led him to the stars.--Eric Ormsby"New York Sun" (03/12/2008)
Product Description
The Dutch telescope and the Italian scientist Galileo have long enjoyed a durable connection in the popular mind - so much so that it seems this simple glass instrument transformed a rather modest middle-aged scholar into the bold icon of the Copernican Revolution. And yet the extraordinary speed with which the telescope changed the course of Galileo's life and early modern astronomy obscures the astronomer's own curiously delayed encounter with the instrument. This book considers the lapse between the telescope's creation in The Hague in 1608 and Galileo's alleged acquaintance with such news ten months later. In an inquiry into scientific and cultural history, Eileen Reeves explores two fundamental questions of intellectual accountability: what did Galileo know of the invention of the telescope, and when did he know it?The record suggests that Galileo, like several of his peers, initially misunderstood the basic design of the telescope. In seeking to explain the gap between the telescope's emergence and the alleged date of the astronomer's acquaintance with it, Reeves explores how and why information about the telescope was transmitted, suppressed, or misconstrued in the process. Her revised version of events, rejecting the usual explanations of silence and idleness, is a revealing account of the role that misprision, error, and preconception play in the advancement of science.Along the way, Reeves offers a revised chronology of Galileo's life in a critical period and, more generally, shows how documents typically outside the scope of early modern natural philosophy - medieval romances, travel literature, and idle speculations - relate to two crucial events in the history of science.
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First Sentence
THE notion of telescopic vision long predates the telescope. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index
THE notion of telescopic vision long predates the telescope. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
This book, whilst the product of much scholarship, is very disappointing. Instead of the analysis of the optics and mechanics of telescope and lens design and construction I was expecting, it is an examination of boastful reports of curved mirrors by correspondents who seem to be reporting on items they have either not seen or have persuaded themselves possess magical properties.
No doubt interesting enough to the student of the late-mediaeval mindset but to the student of early technology an example of why it is important to look over a book before purchasing.
No doubt interesting enough to the student of the late-mediaeval mindset but to the student of early technology an example of why it is important to look over a book before purchasing.
Format:Hardcover
If you are strongly interested in the history of the physical sciences and astronomy then this is the book for you. If you thought that Galileo invented the astronomical telescope all of a piece while fiddling with lenses then you need to read this account to set the record straight. This is a major contribution to scholarship in which the long history of optics is beautifully described. The quest for telescopic vision goes way back to antiquity, with its mythical and legendary accounts of magical and mystical mirrors used to see far-off enemies and immolate unwelcome warships. Eileen Reeves reminds us that Galileo had long had an interest in optics, a subject that he taught at the University of Padua. Her meticulous detective work is strong on the period (almost a year) between the inventions of the Dutch telescope based on two lenses and a tube, and Galileo's spectacular success in improving the invention. All previous attempts at telescopic vision (there were many) had involved unweildy combinations of a concave mirror and a lens (it would take the genius of the future Isaac Newton to crack that problem). And all previous attempts appear to have concentrated on military or covert applications. Galileo not only greatly improved the instrument, he used it to sweep the skies, making great discoveries.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
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2 reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
A Scholarly Work, But...
3 Mar 2008
Format:Hardcover
Although this book's subtitle is "The Telescope and the Mirror", there is very little discussion on the technical evolution and actual uses of these devices. Instead, the author focuses on the myths and legends about "magic mirrors" allowing the ancients to see what people were doing a great many miles away. The evolution of such myths over the centuries is also discussed, culminating with the invention of a real telescope, knowledge of which eventually reached Galileo. This is indeed a scholarly work. It is focused and heavily annotated, i.e., 166 pages of main text are supported by 50 pages of notes/references. However, scholarly works that are also aimed at general readers should be written in a style that is accessible, friendly and engaging. In my view, this is where this book misses the mark. Although I found the writing style to be authoritative, I also found it to be rather dry and awkward, due in no small part to the many very long-winded and often complex sentences. Consequently, it is very difficult to say what the book's target audience is. In my opinion, this is a work that should be studied rather than simply read for pleasure. It would likely be of interest to scholars who may be involved in research along related topics. However, I suspect that general readers, and even many history buffs like me, may find the book confusing and rather boring.
Galileo's Glassworks
14 Dec 2009
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
Not meant for those who want a systematic exposition of the technical development of the telescope. It is, however, a fascinating, detailed, deeply researched and novel approach to the history of the telescope. Conjures up and immerses the reader in the the complex zeitgeist of the 16th and early 17th centuries from which emerged the telescope. Sets the invention in the context of bitter scientific, religious and politic rivalry, scheming for patronage and superstition. The work emphasizes the role of slow and garbled communication of the time and the still rampant superstition, which combined to cause the conflation and confusion of rational and supernatural explanations of the telescope and other cotemporaneously emergent technologies (like the camera obscura and altimetry). The book is scholarly, but somewhat convoluted, at times testing the patience of the reader. In the end, it rewards the effort of the reader.
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