Brian Fridge
ATEC 6331
Three Innovations
1.)Glass
2.)Telescope
3.)Movie projector
1.)GLASS:
Glass, which occurs in natural form as obsidian, was used as early as the Middle
Paleolithic period for making tools. It’s believed that the earliest manufacturing of
glass occurred around 3000 BC as a glaze used on ceramic vessals. The first glass
vessels are believed to have been produced around 1500 BC in Egypt and
Mesopotamia. The method of intentionally producing glass at this time consisted
solely of melting quartzite sand to produce a hot liquid. This method was slow and
costly and was not supersceded by glass blowing until the invention of the blowpipe
around 30 BC on the Mediteranian coast.
Blown glass introduced the availability of glass on a larger scale and the so-called
“First Golden Age of Glass” was during the Christian Era of the countries under
Roman rule. Glass production and inplimentation became more sophistacted with
transparent glass and elaborately colored glass. Glass was also built up in layers and
designs were cut for high relief effect.
Illustrated below is the most famous cameo-glass vessel from antiquity from Italy,
about AD 5-25 (left) and French stained glass panels, 1170-80 (right).
The “Second Golden Age of Glass” began with the Venetian glass guilds in the
1290’s. A highly-developed and intricate blown glass called Cristallo came from this
period. During this time the art of stained-glass reached its height in Europe. By the
late 1400's and early 1500's northern Europe became the leader in glass and in
England lead glass was invented by combining lead oxide. This type of glass would
prove very useful in glass for optical instruments.
Glass for a wide variety of uses was developed throughout Early America for window
glass, containers for storage and medicine , and lamps of all kinds. After 1890,
machinery designed for very specific manipulations of glass material and large scale
manufacturing became prevalent.
Machine for manufacturing glass bottles
“….the development, manufacture, and use of glass increased rapidly. The science
and engineering of glass as a material are now so much better understood that glass
can be tailored to meet an exact need. Any one of thousands of compositions may be
used. Machinery has been developed for precise, continuous manufacture of sheet
glass, tubing, containers, bulbs, and a host of other products. New methods of
cutting, welding, sealing, and tempering, as well as better glass at lower cost, have
led to new uses of glass. Glass is now used to make pipelines, cookware, building
blocks, and heat insulation.”
Artwork by
Dale Chihuly
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfElSJoT1Wg&feature=related
2.)Telescope
The earliest known illustration of a telescope. Giovanbattista
della Porta , 1609.
Optics of Galileo’s telescope. Although not the inventor of the first telescope, Galileo
rapidly improved on the early patents for telescopes in the Netherlands.
Replicas of telescopes of Galileo and Toricelli (ca. 1610)
Galileo’s telescope and Galileo's Sidereus Nuncius, this edition from 1653. “Galileo first
described crater and mountains on the moon in this book, revolutionizing science and
religion. The same book had his first drawings of Jupiter's moons.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFm6gubuP2o
3.)Movie Projector
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDmAxdLvdQ4&feature=related