When the Scientific Revolution Began in the ·1600S. the Lathe Reshaped Our View of the Universe
Downloaded from http://asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/memagazineselect/article-pdf/128/10/38/6356294/me-2006-oct4.pdf by guest on 28 September 2021 When the scientific revolution began in the ·1600s. the lathe reshaped our view of the universe. By Robert O. Woods t some point in any scientific en center of the universe; astronomy left the realm of super deavor it becomes necessary to stition and became a real science. And the revolution was bring philosophy into contact sparked by a few crude lenses fabricated with tools made with the real world. The tools for in a renaissance machine shop. Manufacturing technolo doing this are the scientific instru- gy redrew our view of the universe. ments that can be used to perform critical e"xperiments. These instru ments are tangible hardware, not abstract thought. The Telescopes Pave the Way theoretician is thus, sooner or later, at the mercy of the The story of progress in early astronomy is the history instrument maker. of lens making for telescopes. Advances were initially In the case of astronomy, instrumentation has come confined to increasing magnification. Later, better reso to mean better and bigger telescopes. Today, the in lution became critical. Each refinement in lens quality strument makers include the thousands who con led to another discovery-the lunar mountains, the tributed to the Hubble space telescope and the thou Milky Way, Jovian satellites, Saturn's rings. The list grows sands more who are working on the Webb telescope. today with Hubble's observations. In the early days, the astronomer depended on the Having Galileo's work as catalyst, many natural phi craftsmen who fabricated the astrolabes that gave nu losophers became involved in advancing the science of merical precision to naked-eye observations.
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