Revolutions: The Telescope BBC Four

[DaveS]

I have to confess to being a little disappointed with this program, as others have said, too american, and not up to Jim A-K's normal standard. Was looking forward to it after the Rocket episode, but think I won't bother with the rest. A pity really.

[DaveS]

8 hours ago, johninderby said:

This could have something to do with it. 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/bbcstudios/2019/discovery

Oh dear, does that mean more dumbed-down-for-Americans programs?

[Alien 13]

On 21/08/2019 at 07:11, lukebl said:

It was a excellent documentary, I thought.

What amazed me was the fact that it took a whole three hundred years after inventing lenses for spectacles before someone thought to put two lenses together and make a telescope.

I was shocked by this as well for both telescopes and microscopes, it took my 4 year old grandson who was playing with a couple of plastic lenses half an hour to ask "Granddad why is everything upside down when I hold them like this?" he had one close to his eye and the other at arms length. 

Another thing was that I remember reading about is that lenses (natural forms) have been around for 4000 years or more.

Alan

 

Edited August 22, 2019 by Alien 13

[Gina]

I found parts of the programme very irritating too - particularly that so-called "telescope dissection" complete with gold stardust.  Ridiculous.

[johninderby]

This seems appropriate.

Curate's egg

A curate’s egg is something that is partly good and partly bad. A curate is a junior cleric. We are fortunate to know the exact origin of the term curate’s egg. It can be traced back to a cartoon published in Punch magazine issue November 9, 1895, drawn by George du Maurier. In the cartoon, a nervous curate is eating an egg at the bishop’s table. The bishop expresses concern that the curate has received a bad egg. The curate doesn’t wish to trouble or offend the bishop so he replies, “Oh, no, my Lord, I assure you that parts of it are excellent!” Obviously, an egg is either fresh or rotten, an egg cannot be partitioned into fresh parts and rotten parts. Originally, the term  a curate’s egg referred to something that is actually bad but declared good. Today, the meaning has changed to describe something partly good and partly bad, something that is not quite