Early Reflecting Telescopes
It is striking how popular histories of the reflecting telescope mirror those of the refracting telescope. With the refracting telescope, one scientist, Galileo Galilei, is given credit for its development even though at least a half dozen other scientists from his time had made equally important contributions (see Fathers of the Telescope). With the reflecting telescope, one scientist, Isaac Newton, is given credit for its development even though at least a half dozen other early scientists made equally important contributions. In both histories, the important work of other great historical figures are ignored. With the refracting telescope it is Johannes Kepler who is ignored. With reflecting telescopes, it is Rene Descartes. Descartes work on the geometry of spherical mirrors would prove to be a critical resource in the design of reflecting telescopes. In both cases as well, the contributions of church scientists are also ignored.
It is widely taught that Isaac Newton invented the reflecting telescope around 1668. In fact, Isaac Newton was neither the first to propose or build a reflecting telescope. This had been done decades before. It was Father Bonaventura Cavalieri and Father Marin Mersenne who proposed the basic geometry for the construction of reflecting telescopes that is still used today. The magnifying effect of concave mirrors had been put to practical use as reading aids by medieval monks centuries before (see Timeline of the Telescope: Year 1300). The possibility of using the telescopic effect of parabolic mirrors for astronomy was discussed centuries before by Leonardo Da Vinci (see Timeline of the Telescope: Year 1513). This possibility was recognized in Galileo's time as well. It was a Jesuit, Niccolo Zucchi, who set out to prove that it was possible by actually building a crude reflecting telescope using a borrowed parabolic mirror and some lenses. This was more than a half-century before Newton's famous telescope (see Jesuits and the Telescope). What Newton did was develop one configuration of reflecting telescope that would eventually prove more practical than some of the other designs from the seventeenth century. This was not the only seventeenth-century design that would prove practical; the Cassegrain design used in the Hubble Space Telescope and most large research telescopes was originally proposed during Newton's time. Laurent Cassegrain, the originator of this design, was also a Roman Catholic cleric.
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