Amazing: Check out Isaac Newton's original handmade telescope
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This is incredibly cool. Isaac Newton worked at the Royal Society, and the organization has kept since 1688 the original telescope that Newton himself built.
Watch the video to understand a nice bit of chemistry as well. Nowadays telescope mirrors are made out of aluminum, which requires a great deal of electricity to refine. That was obviously impossible in the pre-electric age, so Newton relied on clever alloy chemistry to make a mirror shiny enough for astronomy.
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Ryan Cooper is a national correspondent at TheWeek.com. His work has appeared in the Washington Monthly, The New Republic, and the Washington Post.
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