Download or read book Renaissance Vision from Spectacles to Telescopes written by Vincent Ilardi and published by American Philosophical Society. This book was released on 2007 with total page 408 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Deals with the history of eyeglasses from their invention in Italy ca. 1286 to the appearance of the telescope three cent. later. "By the end of the 16th cent. eyeglasses were as common in western and central Europe as desktop computers are in western developed countries today." Eyeglasses served an important technological function at both the intellectual and practical level, not only easing the textual studies of scholars but also easing the work of craftsmen/small bus. During the 15th cent. two crucial developments occurred: the ability to grind convex lenses for various levels of presbyopia and the ability to grind concave lenses for the correction of myopia. As a result, eyeglasses could be made almost to prescription by the early 17th cent. Illus.
Download or read book Making a Spectacle written by Jessica Glasscock and published by Black Dog & Leventhal. This book was released on 2021-10-26 with total page 414 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From 13th century Franciscan monks to Beyoncé in Black is King, Making a Spectacle charts the fascinating ascension of eyeglasses—from an unsightly but useful tool to fashion's must-have accessory. The power of glasses to convey a range of vivid messages about their wearers have made them into a billion-dollar business that appeals to cool kids and rock stars, and those who want to be like them, but the fashionable history of eyeglasses is fraught with anxiety and drama. At the beginning of the 20th century, the assessment in Vogue and Harper's Bazaar was that spectacles were "invariably disfiguring." Invisibility was the best option, and glasses were only to be put on once the lights at the opera went dark. While variations of that glasses-shaming sentiment appeared at regular intervals over the next 100 years or so, eyeglasses continued to evolve into an endless array of shapes, colors, purposes, and personalities. Once sunglasses took off in the 1930s, the magazine editorial made glasses a conspicuous part of the fashion narrative. Eyeglasses went to the ski slopes, the stables, the beach, the Havana hotel. Plastic innovations made a candy-colored rainbow of cat-eyes and "starlet" styles possible. Suddenly, everyone had the opportunity to look like Jackie O on vacation in Capri. Making a Spectacle traces contemporary high fashion frames back to their origins: the military aviator, the glam cat eye, the nerdly Oxford, the high-tech shield, the fanciful butterfly, the lowly rimless, and other styles all make an appearance. Featuring interviews with influential designers, makers, and purveyors of glasses including Adam Selman, Kerin Rose Gold, and l.a. Eyeworks, Making a Spectacle also takes a look at today's most cutting edge eyewear, showing the reader the latest and most innovative ways to see and be seen.
Download or read book Into Print written by John Dreyfus and published by David R. Godine Publisher. This book was released on 1995 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Glasses written by Raphael Fejto and published by Little Inventions. This book was released on 2016 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Romans made the first important discovery about vision. They found that you could see better by looking through a bowl of water, which made what you were looking at bigger. An English monk used glass to make a shaped magnifying device. Over time, these glass lenses got better, but the biggest problem was how to keep them on your head. Designs went from balancing the glasses on your nose to tying them with a ribbon, holding them with a handle, and then finally using wire arms that hook behind the ears. Little Inventions by Raphaël Fejtö is a series of kid-sized books about objects that children encounter every day with little thought of how, where and when they were invented. In fact, the beginnings of these common objects are fascinating and their true stories are told here in amusing anecdotes and charming illustrations. Each book closes with a memory game, making them useful for early reader groups.
Download or read book Glass written by Alan Macfarlane and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2002-10 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Picture, if you can, a world without glass. There would be no microscopes or telescopes, no sciences of microbiology or astronomy. People with poor vision would grope in the shadows, and planes, cars, and even electricity probably wouldn't exist. Artists would draw without the benefit of three-dimensional perspective, and ships would still be steered by what stars navigators could see through the naked eye. In Glass: A World History, Alan Macfarlane and Gerry Martin tell the fascinating story of how glass has revolutionized the way we see ourselves and the world around us. Starting ten thousand years ago with its invention in the Near East, Macfarlane and Martin trace the history of glass and its uses from the ancient civilizations of India, China, and Rome through western Europe during the Renaissance, Enlightenment, and Industrial Revolution, and finally up to the present day. The authors argue that glass played a key role not just in transforming humanity's relationship with the natural world, but also in the divergent courses of Eastern and Western civilizations. While all the societies that used glass first focused on its beauty in jewelry and other ornaments, and some later made it into bottles and other containers, only western Europeans further developed the use of glass for precise optics, mirrors, and windows. These technological innovations in glass, in turn, provided the foundations for European domination of the world in the several centuries following the Scientific Revolution. Clear, compelling, and quite provocative, Glass is an amazing biography of an equally amazing subject, a subject that has been central to every aspect of human history, from art and science to technology and medicine.
Download or read book A History of Illuminated Manuscripts written by Christopher De Hamel and published by . This book was released on 1994 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Illuminated manuscripts are perhaps the most beautiful treasures to survive from the middle ages. This authoritative volume provides a comprehensive introduction to the medieval world of books, their production and their consumption. The text divides this world into different groups of readers and writers: missionaries, emperors, monks, students, aristocrats, priests, collectors and the general public. De Hamel is both informative and immensely readable, and the sumptuous illustrations render this book too good to be missed."--From Amazon.com
Download or read book How Glass Changed the World written by Seth C. Rasmussen and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-02-23 with total page 89 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Glass production is thought to date to ~2500 BC and had found numerous uses by the height of the Roman Empire. Yet the modern view of glass-based chemical apparatus (beakers, flasks, stills, etc.) was quite limited due to a lack of glass durability under rapid temperature changes and chemical attack. This “brief” gives an overview of the history and chemistry of glass technology from its origins in antiquity to its dramatic expansion in the 13th century, concluding with its impact on society in general, particularly its effect on chemical practices.
Download or read book In the Blink of an Eye written by Stefana Sabin and published by Reaktion Books. This book was released on 2021-08-12 with total page 113 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From monocles to pince-nez and goggle-eyes, a cultural and technological history of glasses in fact and fiction. This book examines those who wore glasses through history, art, and literature, from the green emerald through which Emperor Nero watched gladiator fights to Benjamin Franklin’s homemade bifocals, and from Marilyn Monroe’s cat-eye glasses to the famed four-eyes of Emma Bovary and Harry Potter. Spectacles are objects that seem commonplace, but In the Blink of an Eye shows that because they fundamentally changed people’s lives, glasses were the wellspring of a quiet social, cultural, and economic revolution. Indeed, one can argue that modernity itself began with the paradigm shift that transformed poor eyesight from a severely limiting disease—treated with pomades and tinctures—into a minor impairment that can be remedied with mechanisms constructed from lenses and wire.
Download or read book One Good Turn written by Witold Rybczynski and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2001-09-11 with total page 180 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Best Tool of the Millennium The seeds of Rybczynski's elegant and illuminating new book were sown by The New York Times, whose editors asked him to write an essay identifying "the best tool of the millennium." The award-winning author of Home, A Clearing in the Distance, and Now I Sit Me Down, Rybczynski once built a house using only hand tools. His intimate knowledge of the toolbox -- both its contents and its history -- serves him beautifully on his quest. One Good Turn is a story starring Archimedes, who invented the water screw and introduced the helix, and Leonardo, who sketched a machine for carving wood screws. It is a story of mechanical discovery and genius that takes readers from ancient Greece to car design in the age of American industry. Rybczynski writes an ode to the screw, without which there would be no telescope, no microscope -- in short, no enlightenment science. One of our finest cultural and architectural historians, Rybczynski renders a graceful, original, and engaging portrait of the tool that changed the course of civilization.
Download or read book Seeing Renaissance Glass written by Sarah M. Dillon and published by Peter Lang Incorporated, International Academic Publishers. This book was released on 2018 with total page 214 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Seeing Renaissance Glass explores how artists such as Giotto, Duccio, Nicola Pisano, Simone Martini, and others employed the medium of glass--whether it be depictions of glass or actual glass in the form of stained glass, gilded glass, and transparent glass--to resonate with the period's complex visuality and achieve their artistic goals.
Download or read book The Invention of Eyeglasses written by Edward Rosen and published by . This book was released on 1956 with total page 152 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Opus Majus of Roger Bacon written by Roger Bacon and published by . This book was released on 1897 with total page 608 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Cult Eyewear written by Neil Handley and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Selecting a pair of glasses can be a tricky business. With so many styles and labels available, the choice is as much about making a fashion statement as gaining perfect vision. Cult Eyewear is the first book to give an account of the world’s top eyewear brands, from Ray-Ban to J.F. Rey, Persol to Polaroid, and from the 1780s to the present day. Neil Handley, an authority on the history of eyewear, selects more than 30 famous names that have enduring appeal and command a dedicated following, and discusses the history of each brand and its most iconic spectacles or sunglasses. The book also includes a concise illustrated introduction to the evolution of eyewear; innovative designs and historically important inventions; films and key personalities associated with particular designs or brands through the years; and other fascinating aspects of this global industry.
Download or read book Harnessing Light written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 1998-09-25 with total page 358 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Optical science and engineering affect almost every aspect of our lives. Millions of miles of optical fiber carry voice and data signals around the world. Lasers are used in surgery of the retina, kidneys, and heart. New high-efficiency light sources promise dramatic reductions in electricity consumption. Night-vision equipment and satellite surveillance are changing how wars are fought. Industry uses optical methods in everything from the production of computer chips to the construction of tunnels. Harnessing Light surveys this multitude of applications, as well as the status of the optics industry and of research and education in optics, and identifies actions that could enhance the field's contributions to society and facilitate its continued technical development.
Download or read book The Origins of the Telescope written by Albert Van Helden and published by Amsterdam University Press. This book was released on 2010 with total page 376 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The origins of the telescope have been discussed and debated since shortly after the instrument's appearance in The Hague in 1608. Civic and national pride have led local dignitaries, popular writers, and numerous scholars to search the archives and to construct sharply divergent histories. Did the honor of the invention belong to the Dutch, to the Italians, to the English, or to the Spanish? And if the city of Middelburg in the Netherlands was, in fact, the cradle of the instrument, was the "true inventor" Hans Lipperhey or his rival Zacharias Jansen? Or was the instrument there before anyone knew it? Over the past several decades, a group of historians and scientists have sought out new documents, re-examined familiar ones, and tested early lenses and telescopes. This volume contains the proceedings of a symposium held in Middelburg in September 2008 to mark 400 years of the telescope. The essays in it, taken as a whole, present a new and convincing account of the origins of the instrument that changed mankind's vision of the universe.
Download or read book The Invention of the Telescope written by Albert Van Helden and published by Philadelphia : American Philosophical Society. This book was released on 1977 with total page 72 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ours is an age of science and technology, based on precision instruments. The first such device to strengthen our feeble human senses in our striving to comprehend the strange and elusive universe around us was the telescope. Cornelis de Waard, in his "De uitvinding der verrekijkers" (The Hague, 1906), had uncovered many new documents bearing on the genesis of the telescope. Van Helden began this project as a translation of de Waard's study. However, Van Helden decided that the profession and de Waard's memory would be better served by a collection and translation of all the relevant primary sources named in his study. Contents of this volume: Intro.; The Background; Between Porta and Lipperhey, 1589-1608; and Documents. Illus. Reprint.
Download or read book Optics and Lasers in Biomedicine and Culture written by Costas Fotakis and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2000 with total page 380 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Following to previous OWLS conferences devoted to widespread applications of optics in life sciences, this 5th OWLS Conference focuses on recent achievements in applying lasers and optics in biomedicine and the preservation of our cultural heritage. Particular attention is paid to laser diagnostics in medicine, interaction of laser radiation with biological tissue, aspects of the preservation of cultural heritage, and the development of new systems for these studies. The contributors to this volume cover international research activities in the following areas: Laser-tissue interactions and tissue optics - photon migration in tissue; Medical sensors - fiber optics; Clinical use of lasers (dermatology, ENT, cardiology, etc.); Laser-based techniques in art conservation (cleaning, diagnostics, analytical applications); Imaging techniques and lasers in archaeology; Laser technologies in contemporary art (holography, marking, etc.); and New laser and opto-electronic systems for biomedical and art-related studies.