3 ms·
They weren't too far apart for their times, it took forever for techniques to spread back then, the big issue is the level of accuracy they could get in lens gr
by rtkwe 7y ago
They weren't too far apart for their times, it took forever for techniques to spread back then, the big issue is the level of accuracy they could get in lens grinding. When you start stacking optical elements and defects in the primary element get compounded by all the elements after it so you need very good lenses to build a usable telescope.
- taejo 7y agoYou're right, and I didn't mean to imply that a few centuries was a particularly long time (just that this is the time in which my scant knowledge is useful). Telescopes and microscopes also provided the motivation for improvements in lensmaking in the 17th and 18th centuries, but I don't know how much this had been limited by motivation vs technology before then.
- rtkwe 7y ago> but I don't know how much this had been limited by motivation vs technology before then. The answer I've always found has been it's a bit of both. Motivation drives technological development but motivation is also very heavily driven by the available technology. You have to conceive that a thing is possible before you can think about what tech can be developed to do it for example.