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Lab hidden inside a famous monument
- anfractuosity 9y agoVery interesting, I'm curious if the lenses are still there?
- dflock 9y agoI very much doubt it - those things weren't cheap and probably would have been repurposed, if possible.
- Boothroid 9y agoWhere do these things that are stolen end up? I wonder what is left nether.
- phlyingpenguin 9y agoMany of the scientific antiquities and papers of the UK end up at the Royal Society Library. Brady Haran has a nice video series named Objectivity[1] about objects in the archives done with their head librarian, Keith Moore[2]. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtwKon9qMt5YLVgQt1tvJKg https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtwKon9qMt5YLVgQt1tvJKg [2]: https://blogs.royalsociety.org/history-of-science/author/keithmoore/ https://blogs.royalsociety.org/history-of-science/author/kei...
- anfractuosity 9y agoCheers, I didn't realise the Royal Society had a library. Will check your links.
- macarthy12 9y agoHooke was a master lens maker, and the inventor of the modern microscope.
- ashark 9y agoThe monument in question is this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monument_to_the_Great_Fire_of_London https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monument_to_the_Great_Fire_of_...
- ninju 9y agoYou ruined the surprise :-)
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- thefalcon 9y agoI can't help but think fondly of the Baroque cycle when reading about the likes of Hooke and Wren. https://www.nealstephenson.com/baroque-cycle/ https://www.nealstephenson.com/baroque-cycle/
- pdwetz 9y agoSame! I really need to read up on the actual history a bit more, as it was a golden age of really cool (and bizarre) things happening.
- sn9 9y agoJames Gleick's Isaac Newton is an excellent account of the time. It focuses on Newton's life and is quite brief, but still prepares you to recognize many of the cast in the Baroque cycle.
- sethrin 9y agoI would perhaps recommend The Clockwork Universe[0] instead, which is more or less exactly an overview of the characters and intellectual influences of the time. [0] https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004GB1TTA/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004GB1TTA/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?...
- jwfxpr 9y agoI was thinking the exact same thing while reading. And while holidaying in Bohemia earlier this year!
- nullc 9y agoI can't help thinking of the false proof punishment in Anathem whenever anyone mentions the Baroque cycle. There are so many bits of true history mixed in indistinguishably with irrelevant falsehoods-- which were especially irritating because I'd been reading swaths of Philosophical Transactions from the 1700s shortly before reading Quicksilver-- that I found reading it to be a punishment.
- Mz 9y agoThis piece is really good for reasons that go far beyond the hidden Indiana Jones style secret lab: Every six months, the star moves north or south in the sky at a scale equivalent to the hands moving 22 ten-thousandths of a second. To magnify parallax enough to see it, you need a very large telescope indeed.
- CydeWeys 9y agoI find it weird that this article acts as if Robert Hooke isn't particularly well known, and downplays his accomplishments somewhat. He's an influential scientist, with contributions in many fields, whose name everyone learns in high school (both in biology and physics class). The British should be a bit more proud of him.
- Boothroid 9y agoSo many contenders. Britain built the modern world.
- barrkel 9y agoThe English-speaking world often thinks so.
- traverseda 9y agoYou're implying you think they're wrong? Why not instead state why you think they're wrong.
- barrkel 9y agoI'm not really interested in a to and fro off-topic argument, but I know from previous to and fros, every big European country has its own heroes of the enlightenment. I find proclaiming nationalist "we're special" ownership ugly and usually ignorant, which is why I commented.