It's amazing. We think of these scientists as geniuses of their time (and they were). We think of the amazing discoveries they did. Then we think of science as precision, detailed, concise work. But when I see instruments like this with all their imperfections and such. Newton's telescope with a shiny piece of metal for a mirror and to think of all they accomplished in spite of their instrument's faults... it's amazing.
+fasfan The stuff they were able to figure out without calculators alone is astounding to me. I'll be in a college class and somedays I can't stop thinking "How the hell did anyone come up with this stuff?" it's just amazing to me and almost feels like cheating that I'm being spoonfed stuff they spent their entire lives figuring out.
+fasfan Newton's mirrored telescope was brilliant, precisely for the reasons seen in this video :). Precision crafting with red hot silicates is still considered an impressive trade nowadays. But polishing materials with sub millimeter precision..? All it takes is patience - a lot. Impressive, nonetheless!
4:19 You know, since we see them a lot on this channel, I wouldn't mind a video about those books that consist of scraps of paper. Does the museum put those together? How are the pages attached to the binding withing damaging the original piece? Some sort of special glue? How do they decide what goes with what? Are they made custom or do they produce many of those hardcover "books" with only two inches of paper bound to the spine? Can someone give me a name of these books so I can at least look them up myself? Thanks.
Man i love this series....it gives people access to artifacts from the royal society that you probably wouldnt have access to unless you went to the royal society yourself....keep up the great work!
If you missed it, the quote on the last lens was: "OBJECT-GLASS by HUYGENS, for a telescope of 210 feet. (These great lengths were necessary before acromatic compensation was introduced by Hall and Dolland) (Presented in -s1767s- 1724 by the Rev. Gilbert Burnet, F.R.S)" The story behind Hall and Dolland and who invented the achromatic lens first is a fascinating one. It involves legendary instrument maker Jesse Ramsden (Dolland's son-in-law) and the Royal Society itself.
+MichaelKingsfordGray I thought I'd see if Wikipedia had anything on Huygens 210 inch telescope. It lists two 210 inch telescopes, one 7.7 inch and another with an 8.5 inch lens. the second was the world's largest telescope from 1686 to 1734, almost half a century, when it was succeeded by a Gregorian reflector. I wonder if either is the one at the Royal Society.
Its really nice to see all these objects related to Huygens. I pass by his house every day on my way to work. I live in the same town as Huygens did (Voorburg) and every day I can not help but wonder: what would Huygens be up to today a few hundred years ago.
0:56 I'm dutch and "Juny" translates to "June" (Though it's the old style of writing, obviously. Today we use "Juni") Also just noticed that this was uploaded on my birthday 😋
It must have taken a tremendous amount of good will and patience to use such an instrument. Just aligning the entire floppy mess to look at something would be a trial, let alone tracking an object as it moves across the sky. Seeing these lenses and the drawings of their setup really illustrates the motivation behind Newton's invention of the reflector telescope. I was amazed by the number of bubbles in the glass. I wasn't able to tell in the video, but are the lenses clear or do they have a color cast also?
Hey Brady I am hoping that you'll show more chemistry related items though because I am really interested in them and since you have shown a lot about space, biology, literature, etc Well, best wishes from Indonesia and have a good year for you and Keith of course. Cheers :D
Great video, again! Has anyone made replicas of these kinds of aerial telescopes? Would be interesting to see how they are operated and what you can see with them. The drawings were pretty clear, should be doable to set one up.
I'd also like to see some of the eyepieces used with these objectives. These would have to have focal lengths of at least a foot or greater to give any sort of reasonable magnification on astronomical objects.
De la rue is a good Guernsey name, Warren was born in Guernsey. His father was Thomas De La Rue who started and founded the company now known as De La Rue Plc, which produces the Bank of England banknotes
Imagine holding the end of a stick over a hundred feet long with a lens at one end, and a larger lens on the other end resting at the end of a tall post. And both lenses would had been set in mounts made of wood and brass where the glass itself would had most certainly been fixed with pitch. (BTW pitch is still used to fix lenses during grinding and polishing)
Man that glass quality is absolutely atrocious (still the best of its time of course) It's amazing the kind of science and observations they managed to do with these simple tools
fantastic Keith introduction as always! what was in cameraman on in this video though? always panning the camera so that it cuts off half of bradys face, and wobbling around like a person in the late stages of Parkinson's disease.
Grove332 Aye, he did. He was mistaken, I'm afraid. The spelling has changed to Juni in modern Dutch. All of the letters in Juny are in "January", in order, so it's probably an easy mistake to make, reading it engraved on glass.
Just wondering, does the Royal Society digitize all of their documents? Also a general science question I guess, does the act of digitizing old documents damage them at all?
Grinding and polishing lenses with those focal lengths I would call it ingenious not limitations. I have no idea how they achieved it. With the brillant Newtonian reflecting telescopes you have to count in that at that time the mirrors were polished out of solid metals of which the reflectivity degraded due to surface oxidation and the geometry was much more sensitive to temperature changes. You can not hold them for modern reflecting telescopes with special glasses and reflecting coatings as you can not compare Huygens' aerial telescope with modern refracting telescopes. I have deep respect for these scientists and craftsmen who built those marvelous instruments!
I am sorry, but the fact that there is an object which serves only to prop up that box cover, AND that there is one for each box is blowing my mind a little bit
It is not portions of pages cut out. Those are pieces of paper that have these square-like dimensions that do not fit the A4 format we use today. So you have an empty book/document with pieces in the middle and you attach the old document pages to those poeces (you can see that they are attached to this white thing running down the middle of the document). Reason why one is attached to the bootom and one on the top part is becouse you want to reduce the surface where pages are touching each other so they get demaged less and also helps with turning the pages.
Blimey, can you imagine how much of a *nightmare* it would have been to actually observe anything with a telescope as unwieldy as that? You can see why Newton and others thought the reflecting telescope was a great idea if that is the peak of precision glassware at the time.
I like that they have those foam wedges for proper opening of old boxes.
+DrRawley That was pure porn for me
Don’t want to stress the hinges I supposed.
Damn, a lens made by Huygens and owned by Newton...and Brady is handling it...all the time I was thinking "please don't drop it"
It's amazing. We think of these scientists as geniuses of their time (and they were). We think of the amazing discoveries they did. Then we think of science as precision, detailed, concise work. But when I see instruments like this with all their imperfections and such. Newton's telescope with a shiny piece of metal for a mirror and to think of all they accomplished in spite of their instrument's faults... it's amazing.
+fasfan The stuff they were able to figure out without calculators alone is astounding to me. I'll be in a college class and somedays I can't stop thinking "How the hell did anyone come up with this stuff?" it's just amazing to me and almost feels like cheating that I'm being spoonfed stuff they spent their entire lives figuring out.
+fasfan
Newton's mirrored telescope was brilliant, precisely for the reasons seen in this video :). Precision crafting with red hot silicates is still considered an impressive trade nowadays. But polishing materials with sub millimeter precision..? All it takes is patience - a lot.
Impressive, nonetheless!
I love the way Keith stalks in, birdlike, from out of frame.
4:19 You know, since we see them a lot on this channel, I wouldn't mind a video about those books that consist of scraps of paper. Does the museum put those together? How are the pages attached to the binding withing damaging the original piece? Some sort of special glue? How do they decide what goes with what? Are they made custom or do they produce many of those hardcover "books" with only two inches of paper bound to the spine?
Can someone give me a name of these books so I can at least look them up myself? Thanks.
"Juny" is now spelled "Juni" in Dutch and this is indeed the month of June.
Agreed, I was about to leave the exact same comment. :)
+Willem van de Beek
Me too, and I'm not even Dutch.
+spookanide Thank you!
Best channel on TH-cam! Keep it coming. You could literally do this forever by doing a new museum every 5 years or so.
Man i love this series....it gives people access to artifacts from the royal society that you probably wouldnt have access to unless you went to the royal society yourself....keep up the great work!
loving the foam wedges
If you missed it, the quote on the last lens was: "OBJECT-GLASS by HUYGENS, for a telescope of 210 feet. (These great lengths were necessary before acromatic compensation was introduced by Hall and Dolland) (Presented in -s1767s- 1724 by the Rev. Gilbert Burnet, F.R.S)" The story behind Hall and Dolland and who invented the achromatic lens first is a fascinating one. It involves legendary instrument maker Jesse Ramsden (Dolland's son-in-law) and the Royal Society itself.
+MichaelKingsfordGray I thought I'd see if Wikipedia had anything on Huygens 210 inch telescope. It lists two 210 inch telescopes, one 7.7 inch and another with an 8.5 inch lens. the second was the world's largest telescope from 1686 to 1734, almost half a century, when it was succeeded by a Gregorian reflector. I wonder if either is the one at the Royal Society.
RMoribayashi I'd watch a movie about that
Its really nice to see all these objects related to Huygens. I pass by his house every day on my way to work. I live in the same town as Huygens did (Voorburg) and every day I can not help but wonder: what would Huygens be up to today a few hundred years ago.
Brady's enthusiasm is so great it does make me wonder whether it's entirely genuine or a bit of showmanship
I did not even know an 'aerial telescope' was a possible thing. Yet here they are in Huygens' and Newton's. day.
Guys. This channel is so good, guys.
I like the new longer uncut segments. You do a great job of holding my attention while describing a very simple yet impressive scientific instrument!
Where would the world be without Keith?
What an amazing person!
I hope you never run out of cool interesting things to show us.
0:56 I'm dutch and "Juny" translates to "June"
(Though it's the old style of writing, obviously. Today we use "Juni")
Also just noticed that this was uploaded on my birthday 😋
I love astronomy and seeing how it was done back then.
Mysterious boxes? It says Big Old Lenses in the title...
This video is sponsored by the mysterious threat in the movie Snakes on a Plane.
+2nd3rd1st And the mysterious artefact at the end of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
2:23 A 122 feet distance is 37 meters if you wanted to know as well x)
It must have taken a tremendous amount of good will and patience to use such an instrument. Just aligning the entire floppy mess to look at something would be a trial, let alone tracking an object as it moves across the sky.
Seeing these lenses and the drawings of their setup really illustrates the motivation behind Newton's invention of the reflector telescope.
I was amazed by the number of bubbles in the glass. I wasn't able to tell in the video, but are the lenses clear or do they have a color cast also?
Objectivity checklist
Ancient documents...Check!
Mysterious unopened boxes...Check!
Keith Moore, Head Librarian...Check!
But what about the white gloves? :)
That opening. This is gonna be good!
I adore these videos. Keep them coming please. ☺
Great video.
Hey Brady I am hoping that you'll show more chemistry related items though because I am really interested in them and since you have shown a lot about space, biology, literature, etc
Well, best wishes from Indonesia and have a good year for you and Keith of course. Cheers :D
3:42 I like how the date is crossed out and corrected in pencil.
if only i could go to the shop with this checklist :(
You are doing an amazing job Brady!
Great video, again! Has anyone made replicas of these kinds of aerial telescopes? Would be interesting to see how they are operated and what you can see with them. The drawings were pretty clear, should be doable to set one up.
+Tommi Himberg There's your calling.
thank you!
I'd also like to see some of the eyepieces used with these objectives. These would have to have focal lengths of at least a foot or greater to give any sort of reasonable magnification on astronomical objects.
De la rue is a good Guernsey name, Warren was born in Guernsey. His father was Thomas De La Rue who started and founded the company now known as De La Rue Plc, which produces the Bank of England banknotes
Do a video about Keith
So cool!
The lenses as well as the drawings are very cool :-)
I love you Keith!
I never knew the string telescope before! Thanks!
Imagine holding the end of a stick over a hundred feet long with a lens at one end, and a larger lens on the other end resting at the end of a tall post. And both lenses would had been set in mounts made of wood and brass where the glass itself would had most certainly been fixed with pitch. (BTW pitch is still used to fix lenses during grinding and polishing)
My god Keith's suit is impeccable
Hot diggity! :) I love Objectivity on a good day off. Keith for PM!
Man that glass quality is absolutely atrocious (still the best of its time of course)
It's amazing the kind of science and observations they managed to do with these simple tools
the 3rd lence case has a date corrected. Thats an interesting storry they diddn't told us.
fantastic Keith introduction as always! what was in cameraman on in this video though? always panning the camera so that it cuts off half of bradys face, and wobbling around like a person in the late stages of Parkinson's disease.
That definitely looks like it says juny.
+Grove332
Indeed it does. It means June.
Nilguiri I know
Grove332
Yeah, so do I, what is your point? haha.
Nilguiri Keith said January
Grove332
Aye, he did. He was mistaken, I'm afraid. The spelling has changed to Juni in modern Dutch. All of the letters in Juny are in "January", in order, so it's probably an easy mistake to make, reading it engraved on glass.
Just wondering, does the Royal Society digitize all of their documents? Also a general science question I guess, does the act of digitizing old documents damage them at all?
~ 1:30 - Is that the remnants of a black eye, Brady? Been bar fighting off camera?
Grinding and polishing lenses with those focal lengths I would call it ingenious not limitations. I have no idea how they achieved it.
With the brillant Newtonian reflecting telescopes you have to count in that at that time the mirrors were polished out of solid metals of which the reflectivity degraded due to surface oxidation and the geometry was much more sensitive to temperature changes. You can not hold them for modern reflecting telescopes with special glasses and reflecting coatings as you can not compare Huygens' aerial telescope with modern refracting telescopes.
I have deep respect for these scientists and craftsmen who built those marvelous instruments!
Love the videos! (juny is june as you probably already know)
Hi Brady, would you do a video about the oldest man-made object Royal Society owns? Cheers!
I am sorry, but the fact that there is an object which serves only to prop up that box cover, AND that there is one for each box is blowing my mind a little bit
keith is the equivalent of the professor from 'periodic videos' in 'objectivity'
And now you´re handling a book with gloves again! I´m confused ;)
+Harmen Luth Expect the unexpected!
I didn't know everything in objectivity is Czech
I noticed many of those old manuscript books had portions of pages cut out. Why?
It is not portions of pages cut out. Those are pieces of paper that have these square-like dimensions that do not fit the A4 format we use today. So you have an empty book/document with pieces in the middle and you attach the old document pages to those poeces (you can see that they are attached to this white thing running down the middle of the document). Reason why one is attached to the bootom and one on the top part is becouse you want to reduce the surface where pages are touching each other so they get demaged less and also helps with turning the pages.
And here i thought the 4 meter focal length of my astronomy clubs C14 was long, this is insane
I'm surprised you don't have white gloves on your checklist!
Surely Keith read up on the subject before the video?! Nobody can have this amount of knowledge in their head
+hardc00re10 Jordan Schlansky does
Blimey, can you imagine how much of a *nightmare* it would have been to actually observe anything with a telescope as unwieldy as that? You can see why Newton and others thought the reflecting telescope was a great idea if that is the peak of precision glassware at the time.
Keith should go on The Chase :)
TH-cam is selling ads for contact lenses on this. Ha! maybe they should run an ad for a telescope.
Don't drop it, Brady.
I wonder what all those feet are in today's measurements.
#hollandsglas
Apparently I'm the first & now I'm the second.
Happy Tuesday!
That last box had a cup stain on the lid. Sloppy physicists