Judy Wilson, age 12, of Eugene, Ore., for her question:
WHO INVENTED THE TELESCOPE?
The basic telescope design is a clever arrangement of lenses, and glass workers were grinding curved lenses in the 1200s. However, nobody arranged a pair of lenses to make a telescope until the early 1600s. Most experts agree that the design was discovered accidentally by a Dutch spectacle maker‑and some say that his young son helped to make the invention possible.
This story takes us to a town in Holland in 1608. If you wanted a pair of spectacles, you went to the shop of Hans Lippershey who ground circles of glass to make the lenses. As you know, a curved glass lens performs magic with rays of light to make objects look larger.
There are several different stories about the invention of the telescope. Andy's favorite tells how Lippershey's young son was playing with lenses on his father's workbench. He held two at arm's length, one closer and one farther \from his eyes. When he looked through the two lenses, the church steeple across town looked larger and close at hand. Quite by accident, he had discovered the secret design of the telescope.
Others claim that the telescope was invented by Lippershey senior. In any case, this Dutch spectacle maker of long ago applied for a patent for the invention. The authorities refused to grant the patent for reasons unknown. However, news of the great invention spread far and wide.
Meantime, the great astronomer Galileo heard about it in Italy. He got busy right away and made a beautiful little telescope‑‑which became the most important telescope in history. It magnified only 32 times. Yet in 1609 Galileo looked through it at the heavens‑‑and reported the first telescopic views of the planets
The simple telescope is basically a tube with a convex lens at each end. You can make it work with a cardboard tube by placing a thick lens for the eyepiece and a thinner lens at the far end.
Maybe others also discovered the secret of the telescope. But most historians give the credit to one of the Lippersheys, father or son. In any case, the most famous of those early telescopes was the one Galileo used to scan the skies. From it he learned enough to change the old idea that our little world is the center of the whole universe. For it revealed that the earth revolves around the sun.