1 00:00:03,304 --> 00:00:05,771 Since the dawn of humankind, 2 00:00:05,840 --> 00:00:08,841 we have looked to the stars and wondered, 3 00:00:08,909 --> 00:00:11,310 what's up there? 4 00:00:11,379 --> 00:00:17,016 What lies beyond this small, blue planet we call home? 5 00:00:17,084 --> 00:00:20,386 "If only," our ancestors thought, 6 00:00:20,454 --> 00:00:24,523 "there was a way to bring the sky closer 7 00:00:24,592 --> 00:00:28,394 to really see the stars." 8 00:00:28,462 --> 00:00:33,699 Just how humanity managed to do this is quite a tale. 9 00:00:35,369 --> 00:00:39,438 It would take crystals forged inside the earth... 10 00:00:40,875 --> 00:00:43,909 Just the right amount of salt, 11 00:00:43,978 --> 00:00:48,614 a chance alignment of two small pieces of glass, 12 00:00:48,682 --> 00:00:52,217 a property boom in New York, 13 00:00:52,286 --> 00:00:56,555 and an accident of chemistry and light 14 00:00:56,624 --> 00:01:00,659 to create the device that would open our eyes 15 00:01:00,728 --> 00:01:02,528 to the universe itself... 16 00:01:02,596 --> 00:01:04,897 The telescope. 17 00:01:06,400 --> 00:01:09,268 These are the inventions that define our age 18 00:01:09,336 --> 00:01:12,237 and changed our world forever. 19 00:01:12,306 --> 00:01:16,542 They have allowed us to move on the ground 20 00:01:16,610 --> 00:01:19,111 and in the air, 21 00:01:19,180 --> 00:01:21,480 to connect with each other, 22 00:01:21,549 --> 00:01:24,716 and make machines in our own image... 23 00:01:26,454 --> 00:01:32,791 Each a story of ingenuity, of wonder, of breakthrough. 24 00:01:45,072 --> 00:01:48,574 Today, we are on the brink of a new revolution. 25 00:01:48,642 --> 00:01:52,578 Giant new telescopes are being built all over the world, 26 00:01:52,646 --> 00:01:56,415 which scientists hope will answer some of the oldest 27 00:01:56,484 --> 00:02:01,887 and most profound questions humans have ever asked... 28 00:02:01,956 --> 00:02:05,124 How big is the universe? 29 00:02:05,192 --> 00:02:08,060 Are we alone? 30 00:02:08,129 --> 00:02:11,463 Do the stars go on forever? 31 00:02:15,002 --> 00:02:18,036 This is a really fantastic time to be an astronomer, 32 00:02:18,105 --> 00:02:20,672 helping us build the picture of understanding 33 00:02:20,741 --> 00:02:25,444 about the universe that was completely unimaginable even 100 years ago. 34 00:02:27,248 --> 00:02:30,349 Around the world, a new generation of telescopes 35 00:02:30,417 --> 00:02:35,487 is pushing the limits of our vision ever deeper into the cosmos, 36 00:02:35,556 --> 00:02:40,459 and the Hubble space telescope is still at the forefront of this effort. 37 00:02:40,528 --> 00:02:44,296 Astronomers here at the space telescope science institute 38 00:02:44,365 --> 00:02:48,667 are combining images from Hubble with other telescopes 39 00:02:48,736 --> 00:02:52,538 to stretch our vision as far as possible. 40 00:02:52,606 --> 00:02:55,641 We're looking for the most distant galaxies 41 00:02:55,709 --> 00:02:57,543 that we can find in the universe. 42 00:02:57,611 --> 00:03:01,079 There's entire systems and worlds out there 43 00:03:01,148 --> 00:03:04,616 that, you know, I'm seeing for the first time. 44 00:03:04,685 --> 00:03:06,585 The story of the telescope 45 00:03:06,654 --> 00:03:10,088 is inseparable from who we are. 46 00:03:10,157 --> 00:03:13,292 It took over 13 billion years to get to this point 47 00:03:13,360 --> 00:03:15,694 where we could build telescopes in space 48 00:03:15,763 --> 00:03:17,629 and witness our origins. 49 00:03:24,471 --> 00:03:27,773 These gleaming technological miracles 50 00:03:27,841 --> 00:03:31,510 of glass and steel define our age. 51 00:03:31,579 --> 00:03:36,782 But the telescope's origin is stranger than you would imagine. 52 00:03:36,850 --> 00:03:42,287 It would all begin with a pile of rocks in Southern Europe. 53 00:03:57,137 --> 00:03:59,972 6,000 years ago, the stone age people 54 00:04:00,040 --> 00:04:01,540 living in this part of Portugal 55 00:04:01,609 --> 00:04:03,775 built these stone structures. 56 00:04:05,512 --> 00:04:06,778 For the last 10 years, 57 00:04:06,847 --> 00:04:08,325 I've been studying these ancient sites 58 00:04:08,349 --> 00:04:11,450 around the countryside where I grew up. 59 00:04:11,518 --> 00:04:13,485 And I believe these megaliths were one of 60 00:04:13,554 --> 00:04:17,522 our earliest attempts to study the stars. 61 00:04:17,591 --> 00:04:21,793 But why were the stars so important to these ancient people? 62 00:04:21,862 --> 00:04:23,729 Because the stone age communities living here 63 00:04:23,797 --> 00:04:26,498 were hunter gatherers and Shepherds. 64 00:04:26,567 --> 00:04:30,502 They were living off the land, which isn't always easy. 65 00:04:30,571 --> 00:04:32,204 That's why in the summer 66 00:04:32,273 --> 00:04:34,840 they would go into the mountain ranges that were green 67 00:04:34,908 --> 00:04:38,176 and provided enough pasture for their animals and for themselves. 68 00:04:38,245 --> 00:04:41,546 And the best way to know when it was time 69 00:04:41,615 --> 00:04:45,150 to move to the mountains was to look to the stars. 70 00:04:45,219 --> 00:04:49,788 So how did these megaliths help them in this quest? 71 00:04:49,857 --> 00:04:52,124 In a perfectly dark night sky, 72 00:04:52,192 --> 00:04:55,294 the human eye can see around 5,000 stars. 73 00:04:57,631 --> 00:05:01,500 To look beyond and see things that we wouldn't normally see, 74 00:05:01,568 --> 00:05:04,403 we need the telescope. 75 00:05:04,471 --> 00:05:09,975 And I think that such technology was already present 6,000 years ago, 76 00:05:10,044 --> 00:05:12,411 1,000 years before Stonehenge 77 00:05:12,479 --> 00:05:16,448 and about 1,500 years before the pyramids in Egypt. 78 00:05:18,085 --> 00:05:20,485 And we also find the remains of it here in Portugal 79 00:05:20,554 --> 00:05:24,856 in the shape of these stone monuments or dolmens. 80 00:05:24,925 --> 00:05:27,826 They only had stone tools, wooden tools, 81 00:05:27,895 --> 00:05:29,528 and possibly bone tools. 82 00:05:29,596 --> 00:05:31,363 And yet, somehow they managed 83 00:05:31,432 --> 00:05:33,665 to carve these rocks out of the landscape, 84 00:05:33,734 --> 00:05:37,402 drag them a few miles, and put them in place. 85 00:05:37,471 --> 00:05:39,104 This was clearly a project 86 00:05:39,173 --> 00:05:42,074 of huge significance for these communities, 87 00:05:42,142 --> 00:05:44,009 and they didn't just do it once. 88 00:05:44,078 --> 00:05:46,545 There are between 15 and 20 monuments 89 00:05:46,613 --> 00:05:48,447 in this river valley alone 90 00:05:48,515 --> 00:05:51,383 with the same orientation, towards the east. 91 00:05:54,321 --> 00:05:56,288 I think these rock chambers were used 92 00:05:56,357 --> 00:05:58,323 to accustom their eyes to the dark, 93 00:05:58,392 --> 00:06:01,493 allowing them to see fainter stars. 94 00:06:04,732 --> 00:06:09,201 Using computer software, we can reconstruct the skies 6,000 years ago, 95 00:06:09,269 --> 00:06:15,707 as it would have been seen from inside these stone monuments. 96 00:06:15,776 --> 00:06:18,543 In the course of a year, as we orbit the sun, 97 00:06:18,612 --> 00:06:20,011 as seen from the earth, 98 00:06:20,080 --> 00:06:21,613 the sun appears to pass through 99 00:06:21,682 --> 00:06:23,682 different parts of the sky. 100 00:06:23,751 --> 00:06:26,451 In the spring, a star called Aldebaran begins 101 00:06:26,520 --> 00:06:29,321 to appear close to the sun as it rises in the east, 102 00:06:29,390 --> 00:06:31,390 marking the perfect time of the year 103 00:06:31,458 --> 00:06:33,358 to move to higher pasture. 104 00:06:33,427 --> 00:06:36,328 The problem is that Aldebaran is all but obscured 105 00:06:36,397 --> 00:06:38,530 by the glare of the rising sun, 106 00:06:38,599 --> 00:06:40,699 which makes it hard to see. 107 00:06:40,768 --> 00:06:42,534 But I think these dolmen, 108 00:06:42,603 --> 00:06:44,836 with their large chambers and long, stone tunnel, 109 00:06:44,905 --> 00:06:49,141 would have allowed them to focus their eyes on a smaller patch of sky 110 00:06:49,209 --> 00:06:51,176 to see the star at sunrise 111 00:06:51,245 --> 00:06:54,179 sooner than they would by standing outside, 112 00:06:54,248 --> 00:06:57,282 signaling to move to the mountains for the summer. 113 00:06:57,351 --> 00:07:00,552 These structures Mark the moment in human history 114 00:07:00,621 --> 00:07:04,523 when we realized that the skies ran predictably like clockwork, 115 00:07:04,591 --> 00:07:06,958 and if you could see the stars better 116 00:07:07,027 --> 00:07:09,761 and, therefore, decipher the patterns in the night sky, 117 00:07:09,830 --> 00:07:13,131 it could help you to survive. 118 00:07:13,200 --> 00:07:15,000 Across the world there are many other 119 00:07:15,068 --> 00:07:16,535 stone structures from this time 120 00:07:16,603 --> 00:07:20,272 which also appear to be aligned with the heavens. 121 00:07:20,340 --> 00:07:23,175 It seems that as soon as we could deploy technology, 122 00:07:23,243 --> 00:07:27,512 even stone technology, we applied it to the stars. 123 00:07:29,583 --> 00:07:33,118 To me, this potentially represents humanity's first steps 124 00:07:33,187 --> 00:07:36,988 into this journey of discovering their place in the cosmos. 125 00:07:39,059 --> 00:07:43,228 Across the world, our ancestors were exploring the heavens. 126 00:07:43,297 --> 00:07:47,766 From Egypt to Australia, early human civilizations 127 00:07:47,835 --> 00:07:51,536 were driving a revolution in human vision, 128 00:07:51,605 --> 00:07:55,040 stretching our sight further out into the cosmos 129 00:07:55,108 --> 00:07:58,009 than the naked eye alone could achieve. 130 00:07:58,078 --> 00:08:03,215 But the telescope requires one material above all others... 131 00:08:03,283 --> 00:08:04,950 Glass. 132 00:08:05,018 --> 00:08:08,920 And the first glass would come from the earth itself. 133 00:08:08,989 --> 00:08:11,056 Over 5,000 years ago, 134 00:08:11,124 --> 00:08:13,558 the people of Rifeh and El Badari in central Egypt 135 00:08:13,627 --> 00:08:17,062 started to pick up small pieces of glassy quartz crystal 136 00:08:17,130 --> 00:08:19,564 that caught their eye, and this is one of them. 137 00:08:19,633 --> 00:08:22,400 Around the world, people were finding 138 00:08:22,469 --> 00:08:25,537 naturally-occurring crystal fragments like this 139 00:08:25,606 --> 00:08:27,906 that appeared to distort the light. 140 00:08:27,975 --> 00:08:31,109 No one knows for sure what they might have been used for, 141 00:08:31,178 --> 00:08:33,912 perhaps as a tool of some kind or simply as jewelry 142 00:08:33,981 --> 00:08:36,047 or some kind of decoration. 143 00:08:36,116 --> 00:08:38,683 But they all have one thing in common... 144 00:08:38,752 --> 00:08:41,019 They could control light. 145 00:08:42,656 --> 00:08:45,957 How they were doing this remained a mystery, 146 00:08:46,026 --> 00:08:48,527 one that would only be solved by someone living 147 00:08:48,595 --> 00:08:52,831 in an extraordinary place at an extraordinary time. 148 00:08:58,305 --> 00:09:03,475 Baghdad in the 9th century really was one of the greatest 149 00:09:03,544 --> 00:09:06,578 and most amazing cities in history... 150 00:09:06,647 --> 00:09:11,650 Perfectly round, 4 miles in circumference with 4 gates, 151 00:09:11,718 --> 00:09:15,020 each at right angles to the other. 152 00:09:18,025 --> 00:09:23,194 Clearly the people who live here just loved math and loved using math. 153 00:09:26,900 --> 00:09:31,703 Baghdad in this period was like Florence during the renaissance 154 00:09:31,772 --> 00:09:33,872 or silicon valley in the age of the Internet. 155 00:09:33,941 --> 00:09:39,344 We often talk about this mythical place, the house of wisdom. 156 00:09:40,647 --> 00:09:42,647 Some would say it was a library 157 00:09:42,716 --> 00:09:44,382 or it was a translation house 158 00:09:44,451 --> 00:09:47,118 that brought together the knowledge of the Greeks, 159 00:09:47,187 --> 00:09:48,587 the knowledge of the Persians, 160 00:09:48,655 --> 00:09:50,221 the knowledge of the Indians, 161 00:09:50,290 --> 00:09:53,458 all converging on this one spot in Baghdad 162 00:09:53,527 --> 00:09:55,260 in the house of wisdom, 163 00:09:55,329 --> 00:09:57,696 a cross fertilization of ideas 164 00:09:57,764 --> 00:10:02,300 that hadn't really happened anytime before that in history. 165 00:10:11,445 --> 00:10:15,013 One of the greatest of scholars of the medieval time 166 00:10:15,082 --> 00:10:19,250 was Ibn Al-Haytham, who was curious about the world. 167 00:10:26,059 --> 00:10:29,461 Ancient Greeks couldn't agree on the nature of light, 168 00:10:29,529 --> 00:10:30,996 on how we see. 169 00:10:31,064 --> 00:10:33,365 Some thought it was light entering our eyes, 170 00:10:33,433 --> 00:10:35,900 some thought it was light beamed out from our eyes. 171 00:10:37,270 --> 00:10:39,104 In a ground-breaking experiment 172 00:10:39,172 --> 00:10:43,308 that would prove which it is, Ibn Al-Haytham blocked a window, 173 00:10:43,377 --> 00:10:46,978 leaving a tiny hole 174 00:10:47,047 --> 00:10:48,813 to create what's known today 175 00:10:48,882 --> 00:10:54,352 as a pinhole camera or camera obscura. 176 00:10:58,825 --> 00:11:01,292 A faint view of the street outside 177 00:11:01,361 --> 00:11:03,728 materialized on the wall opposite, 178 00:11:03,797 --> 00:11:08,266 proving that the light was entering the room from the street, 179 00:11:08,335 --> 00:11:12,037 rather than being projected from his eyes. 180 00:11:12,105 --> 00:11:14,539 But there was a second revelation... 181 00:11:14,608 --> 00:11:18,043 The image was upside down. 182 00:11:18,111 --> 00:11:20,845 Ibn Al-Haytham realized this must be 183 00:11:20,914 --> 00:11:23,615 because the light from outside was traveling 184 00:11:23,684 --> 00:11:26,584 in straight lines as it entered the room. 185 00:11:26,653 --> 00:11:29,954 In fact, all light bounces off objects 186 00:11:30,023 --> 00:11:34,559 in all directions in straight lines. 187 00:11:34,628 --> 00:11:35,894 And once you know that, 188 00:11:35,962 --> 00:11:37,996 you can start to manipulate light 189 00:11:38,065 --> 00:11:41,933 and use it to reveal things that were previously hidden. 190 00:11:45,605 --> 00:11:48,506 Light travels in straight lines. 191 00:11:52,913 --> 00:11:55,046 A phrase that would be translated into 192 00:11:55,115 --> 00:11:57,248 other languages all around the world. 193 00:12:15,635 --> 00:12:17,669 Ibn Al-Haytham's theories are documented 194 00:12:17,738 --> 00:12:19,704 in his celebrated "book of optics," 195 00:12:19,773 --> 00:12:24,609 written almost exactly 1,000 years ago in the early 11th century. 196 00:12:24,678 --> 00:12:28,847 Its pages contain profound ideas about the nature of light, 197 00:12:28,915 --> 00:12:32,083 and they explain why those crystal lenses 198 00:12:32,152 --> 00:12:34,352 distort the light as they do. 199 00:12:34,421 --> 00:12:39,190 For me, Ibn Al-Haytham is the most significant physicist of his age. 200 00:12:39,259 --> 00:12:42,327 His accurate modeling of the nature of light 201 00:12:42,395 --> 00:12:45,029 is a revolution of such importance 202 00:12:45,098 --> 00:12:47,132 that it has the potential to unlock 203 00:12:47,200 --> 00:12:50,201 the secrets of the entire cosmos. 204 00:12:59,479 --> 00:13:01,479 Al Haytham's breakthrough will explain 205 00:13:01,548 --> 00:13:03,648 how those natural crystals control the light. 206 00:13:03,717 --> 00:13:07,385 It's just a glimpse of how we might bring the stars closer. 207 00:13:07,454 --> 00:13:11,489 But to do that, we are also going to need this. 208 00:13:11,558 --> 00:13:12,924 It's a plant called samphire. 209 00:13:12,993 --> 00:13:14,959 In English, we also call it glasswort. 210 00:13:15,028 --> 00:13:17,662 And this plant, remarkably, holds the key 211 00:13:17,731 --> 00:13:21,766 to the revolution which will ultimately bring us the telescope. 212 00:13:27,574 --> 00:13:29,007 In the 13th century, 213 00:13:29,075 --> 00:13:32,510 Venice is the world centre of glassmaking. 214 00:13:39,953 --> 00:13:42,487 And most of the innovation which takes place here 215 00:13:42,556 --> 00:13:46,991 is to be found on this small venetian island called Murano. 216 00:13:51,231 --> 00:13:53,665 The fierce competition of glassmakers here meant 217 00:13:53,733 --> 00:13:57,535 that it's a kind of geek's paradise for glass. 218 00:13:57,604 --> 00:13:59,370 It was the very first time people cared about 219 00:13:59,439 --> 00:14:01,906 every single technical detail to create 220 00:14:01,975 --> 00:14:04,943 the most beautiful work that they possibly could. 221 00:14:06,313 --> 00:14:09,581 Most glass at this time is opaque 222 00:14:09,649 --> 00:14:12,450 due to bubbles and impurities in the mixture. 223 00:14:14,588 --> 00:14:17,622 The holy grail for the artisans of Murano 224 00:14:17,691 --> 00:14:21,359 is to work out how to make glass that's perfectly clear 225 00:14:21,428 --> 00:14:23,561 through careful and meticulous experimentation 226 00:14:23,630 --> 00:14:26,331 with new and old ingredients. 227 00:14:28,368 --> 00:14:30,535 On the trade routes between east and west, 228 00:14:30,604 --> 00:14:33,938 Venice could easily source the main ingredients of glass... 229 00:14:34,007 --> 00:14:35,740 Silicon dioxide or sand 230 00:14:35,809 --> 00:14:39,310 and various sodium and calcium mineral salts. 231 00:14:40,747 --> 00:14:43,615 The secret was the shift from the use 232 00:14:43,683 --> 00:14:48,119 of mineral salts to plant-based salts 233 00:14:48,188 --> 00:14:51,389 from plants which grow in salty environments 234 00:14:51,458 --> 00:14:54,325 and a particular plant that we call samphire, 235 00:14:54,394 --> 00:14:58,029 which traps salt but almost nothing else. 236 00:14:58,098 --> 00:15:00,565 And so, when you burn it, you get a very clean, 237 00:15:00,634 --> 00:15:05,670 pure material to add to your silica to create your glass. 238 00:15:07,474 --> 00:15:10,375 Remarkably, the ash from this marine plant 239 00:15:10,443 --> 00:15:13,945 significantly reduces the melting point of silicon... 240 00:15:16,349 --> 00:15:18,516 Which allowed them to keep it at a temperature 241 00:15:18,585 --> 00:15:21,386 where the glass was liquid enough that any little bubbles 242 00:15:21,454 --> 00:15:24,222 and impurities would come to the top and pop. 243 00:15:25,859 --> 00:15:28,426 This then was the revolution which would allow them 244 00:15:28,495 --> 00:15:32,397 to make glass which was very clear and very pure. 245 00:15:32,465 --> 00:15:35,533 And it was that shift which allowed the Venetians 246 00:15:35,602 --> 00:15:38,803 to create this very, very transparent cristallo, 247 00:15:38,872 --> 00:15:43,508 the name given to clear rock crystal by the Greeks. 248 00:15:51,418 --> 00:15:53,184 This was the first time 249 00:15:53,253 --> 00:15:56,187 we had mass produced clear glass. 250 00:15:56,256 --> 00:15:59,123 This revolution in glass technology 251 00:15:59,192 --> 00:16:02,026 would have many consequences for society, 252 00:16:02,095 --> 00:16:05,563 but perhaps the greatest was the way it would change 253 00:16:05,632 --> 00:16:07,799 how we saw the world. 254 00:16:07,867 --> 00:16:10,768 Here in the basilica of San Nicolo in Treviso, 255 00:16:10,837 --> 00:16:12,437 just north of Venice, 256 00:16:12,505 --> 00:16:15,073 lies evidence of what must have seemed 257 00:16:15,141 --> 00:16:18,576 an astonishing invention at the time. 258 00:16:18,645 --> 00:16:22,380 Painted by Tommaso da Modena in 1352, 259 00:16:22,449 --> 00:16:24,615 the fresco depicts a group of monks 260 00:16:24,684 --> 00:16:30,221 in a monastery scriptorium pouring over their manuscripts. 261 00:16:30,290 --> 00:16:32,991 But look closer. 262 00:16:33,059 --> 00:16:36,127 One of them is wearing spectacles. 263 00:16:40,600 --> 00:16:44,802 This exquisite fresco from almost 700 years ago 264 00:16:44,871 --> 00:16:49,574 is the first image of spectacles in society. 265 00:16:49,642 --> 00:16:52,343 It allowed the monks to keep on reading and writing 266 00:16:52,412 --> 00:16:54,612 for decades longer than before. 267 00:16:54,681 --> 00:16:58,016 They didn't have to accept failing eyesight as the will of god. 268 00:16:58,084 --> 00:17:01,252 They didn't have to delegate the really important task 269 00:17:01,321 --> 00:17:04,055 of acquiring knowledge to younger people. 270 00:17:04,124 --> 00:17:07,025 They could just keep on going, and so they did. 271 00:17:12,232 --> 00:17:14,732 We don't know who created these first glass lenses. 272 00:17:14,801 --> 00:17:16,868 They are lost to history. 273 00:17:16,936 --> 00:17:18,302 But it's no exaggeration to say 274 00:17:18,371 --> 00:17:20,204 that you can draw a direct line 275 00:17:20,273 --> 00:17:23,608 from these spectacles to the extraordinary optical instruments 276 00:17:23,676 --> 00:17:26,711 that we use today to gaze into space. 277 00:17:30,116 --> 00:17:34,252 By the 13th century, we had clear glass lenses. 278 00:17:34,320 --> 00:17:38,489 But that alone won't bring the stars closer. 279 00:17:38,558 --> 00:17:42,360 To do that, would take another 300 years 280 00:17:42,429 --> 00:17:45,129 and the birth of an instrument designed to see 281 00:17:45,198 --> 00:17:48,499 more clearly through the fog of war. 282 00:17:52,839 --> 00:17:56,541 In 1608, a brutal 40-year conflict 283 00:17:56,609 --> 00:18:00,244 between the Dutch and the Spanish was in deadlock. 284 00:18:00,313 --> 00:18:04,282 Both sides were desperate to find a military advantage 285 00:18:04,350 --> 00:18:07,085 that would give them the edge. 286 00:18:10,990 --> 00:18:14,525 Enter Hans Lippershey, a young lens-maker 287 00:18:14,594 --> 00:18:16,861 from the provincial town of Middleburg. 288 00:18:16,930 --> 00:18:20,164 He has a shop in which he's been using lenses 289 00:18:20,233 --> 00:18:22,533 to make eyeglasses for people. 290 00:18:22,602 --> 00:18:25,770 And at this point, 1608, eyeglass manufacturing 291 00:18:25,839 --> 00:18:28,473 has been going on for almost 300 years. 292 00:18:31,277 --> 00:18:33,644 The story has it that one day Lippershey 293 00:18:33,713 --> 00:18:35,980 was watching two customers in his shop 294 00:18:36,049 --> 00:18:39,016 playing with a pair of lenses. 295 00:18:42,555 --> 00:18:44,489 One has a convex lens, 296 00:18:44,557 --> 00:18:47,859 the type used in spectacles to magnify objects, 297 00:18:47,927 --> 00:18:51,329 which she uses to look at a weather vane. 298 00:18:53,166 --> 00:18:56,334 But when she moves the lens too far from her eye, 299 00:18:56,402 --> 00:18:59,637 the image blurs. 300 00:18:59,706 --> 00:19:01,572 The other girl was holding a concave lens 301 00:19:01,641 --> 00:19:04,275 in front of the convex lens... 302 00:19:06,913 --> 00:19:09,881 Which to their surprise and delight re-sharpens 303 00:19:09,949 --> 00:19:13,017 the magnified image from the first lens 304 00:19:13,086 --> 00:19:16,487 by bending the light back into a parallel ray, 305 00:19:16,556 --> 00:19:19,824 brightening the image as it enters the eye. 306 00:19:21,861 --> 00:19:24,495 So what he does with these two lenses 307 00:19:24,564 --> 00:19:29,133 is he puts them together in the correct orientation inside a tube. 308 00:19:30,637 --> 00:19:32,603 As Lippershey looks through it, 309 00:19:32,672 --> 00:19:36,607 he realizes that a tool like this could indeed 310 00:19:36,676 --> 00:19:38,643 be helpful to the Dutch in battle, 311 00:19:38,711 --> 00:19:41,279 allowing them to see the Spanish invaders 312 00:19:41,347 --> 00:19:45,816 from much further away than their eyes alone would allow. 313 00:19:45,885 --> 00:19:48,085 He quickly asks the Dutch authorities 314 00:19:48,154 --> 00:19:49,887 for an exclusive patent for it, 315 00:19:49,956 --> 00:19:53,858 convinced he will make his fortune. 316 00:19:55,595 --> 00:19:58,629 They set up a committee to consider the claim. 317 00:20:07,307 --> 00:20:10,575 Unfortunately, the government officials decide 318 00:20:10,643 --> 00:20:14,879 his particular construction is not unique enough 319 00:20:14,948 --> 00:20:18,049 to separately award him the patent 320 00:20:18,117 --> 00:20:22,186 and the recognition as the inventor. 321 00:20:22,255 --> 00:20:25,056 That one decision by the Dutch authorities 322 00:20:25,124 --> 00:20:28,292 actually gave Lippershey's invention to the world. 323 00:20:28,361 --> 00:20:31,529 With Lippershey's attempt to patent his invention, 324 00:20:31,598 --> 00:20:34,732 the secret of the spyglass was unleashed, 325 00:20:34,801 --> 00:20:37,401 and the idea hurtled across Europe 326 00:20:37,470 --> 00:20:40,571 to a man we've all heard of, 327 00:20:40,640 --> 00:20:44,642 someone whose name would become synonymous with the telescope. 328 00:20:44,711 --> 00:20:47,578 In Venice, Italy, talk of a spyglass 329 00:20:47,647 --> 00:20:50,681 created by a certain Dutchman came to the attention 330 00:20:50,750 --> 00:20:53,417 of a 44-year-old math teacher. 331 00:20:55,154 --> 00:20:57,455 Inspired by Lippershey's spyglass, 332 00:20:57,523 --> 00:21:00,758 he starts to apply logic and calculation 333 00:21:00,827 --> 00:21:02,260 to analyze these phenomena 334 00:21:02,328 --> 00:21:04,929 and experiment with lenses himself. 335 00:21:04,998 --> 00:21:10,334 He quickly makes his own version of the spyglass in a single day, 336 00:21:10,403 --> 00:21:13,037 and then writes to his friends to brag about what he's done. 337 00:21:13,106 --> 00:21:15,406 And the letter he sends records a moment 338 00:21:15,475 --> 00:21:18,542 that will change the course of human history. 339 00:21:18,611 --> 00:21:20,611 His name? 340 00:21:20,680 --> 00:21:23,247 Galileo. 341 00:21:23,316 --> 00:21:25,549 "Applying my eye to the concave lens, 342 00:21:25,618 --> 00:21:28,552 "I saw objects satisfactorily large and near, 343 00:21:28,621 --> 00:21:31,222 "for they appeared one-third of the distance off 344 00:21:31,291 --> 00:21:33,491 "and 9 times larger than when they were seen 345 00:21:33,559 --> 00:21:35,493 with the natural eye alone." 346 00:21:37,230 --> 00:21:39,563 Galileo wasn't necessarily motivated 347 00:21:39,632 --> 00:21:41,532 by pure intellectual curiosity. 348 00:21:41,601 --> 00:21:45,169 He was really excited by fame and glory and power, 349 00:21:45,238 --> 00:21:47,038 and he was really trying to show off 350 00:21:47,106 --> 00:21:48,639 to some of the ruling families, 351 00:21:48,708 --> 00:21:51,942 such as the Medicis of Florence and the doge in Venice. 352 00:21:54,747 --> 00:21:58,549 Galileo's life is pieced together from fragments of his writings, 353 00:21:58,618 --> 00:22:01,619 including, surprisingly, a shopping list that he put together 354 00:22:01,688 --> 00:22:05,990 for a trip to Venice in the winter of 1609. 355 00:22:07,427 --> 00:22:09,493 The list, jotted on the back of a letter, 356 00:22:09,562 --> 00:22:12,229 allows historians to work out what materials 357 00:22:12,298 --> 00:22:14,432 he was using to make his lenses. 358 00:22:14,500 --> 00:22:18,936 The ingredients for one of the most famous telescopes in history... 359 00:22:19,005 --> 00:22:21,405 High-quality crystal blanks, 360 00:22:21,474 --> 00:22:25,576 polished glass, artillery balls and dish-shaped molds, 361 00:22:25,645 --> 00:22:27,778 and Tripoli powder, pitch, and felt 362 00:22:27,847 --> 00:22:29,647 for the grinding and polishing of the glass 363 00:22:29,716 --> 00:22:32,516 into the lenses he needed. 364 00:22:32,585 --> 00:22:35,553 Alongside these ingredients, there were also reminders 365 00:22:35,621 --> 00:22:37,555 to pick up some chickpeas and lentils, 366 00:22:37,623 --> 00:22:43,894 some sugar, pepper, some cinnamon, cloves, and some jam. 367 00:22:43,963 --> 00:22:46,197 Along with his taste in food, 368 00:22:46,265 --> 00:22:49,033 this is the best clue we have to the construction 369 00:22:49,102 --> 00:22:51,369 of his revolutionary telescope. 370 00:22:53,606 --> 00:22:56,974 This shopping list really gives me goosebumps, 371 00:22:57,043 --> 00:22:58,809 not only because it gives me an insight 372 00:22:58,878 --> 00:23:01,345 into Galileo's life 400 years ago, 373 00:23:01,414 --> 00:23:03,247 but it also shows he was grinding 374 00:23:03,316 --> 00:23:05,116 and polishing his own lenses. 375 00:23:05,184 --> 00:23:08,285 And as a glassmaker, I can really identify with that. 376 00:23:08,354 --> 00:23:10,020 But the telescope he was making with them 377 00:23:10,089 --> 00:23:12,189 is really something else. 378 00:23:14,894 --> 00:23:17,695 The original telescope that Galileo built 379 00:23:17,764 --> 00:23:19,997 was a very crude instrument, 380 00:23:20,066 --> 00:23:24,335 but the version he made for the Medici was refined, 381 00:23:24,404 --> 00:23:28,839 perfected, and wrapped in beautiful red leather. 382 00:23:28,908 --> 00:23:32,076 It's known as the presentation telescope 383 00:23:32,145 --> 00:23:35,546 and remains one of the great treasures of astronomy. 384 00:23:35,615 --> 00:23:39,417 For me, an encounter with the presentation telescope 385 00:23:39,485 --> 00:23:42,353 was like a religious experience. 386 00:23:42,422 --> 00:23:47,191 In 2009, the telescope was brought from Italy to here, 387 00:23:47,260 --> 00:23:51,162 the Franklin institute in Philadelphia. 388 00:23:51,230 --> 00:23:53,063 When I first came into the room 389 00:23:53,132 --> 00:23:55,065 where the telescope had been placed, 390 00:23:55,134 --> 00:23:57,568 I was actually speechless, 391 00:23:57,637 --> 00:24:01,872 because here in front of me was an iconic instrument, 392 00:24:01,941 --> 00:24:07,344 an iconic instrument used by one of the most brilliant scientists ever. 393 00:24:13,686 --> 00:24:15,853 The changes in the universe, 394 00:24:15,922 --> 00:24:18,222 the changes in the way we pursue science 395 00:24:18,291 --> 00:24:21,725 are all derivative from this instrument as it sits, 396 00:24:21,794 --> 00:24:25,529 and all I can do is stand in awe 397 00:24:25,598 --> 00:24:27,331 that I'm so close to it. 398 00:24:27,400 --> 00:24:32,703 It's as if I can feel the genius of Galileo radiating off it, 399 00:24:32,772 --> 00:24:36,307 and it's almost palpable. 400 00:24:38,611 --> 00:24:41,445 Of course, the only way to appreciate Galileo's genius 401 00:24:41,514 --> 00:24:43,781 is to take a look inside. 402 00:24:46,152 --> 00:24:48,085 Obviously this isn't Galileo's telescope, 403 00:24:48,154 --> 00:24:51,055 but it is a very good replica. 404 00:24:51,123 --> 00:24:54,458 Here is the instrument created by the person 405 00:24:54,527 --> 00:24:56,994 who opened the universe in a way in which 406 00:24:57,063 --> 00:25:00,564 the universe had never been expanded before. 407 00:25:00,633 --> 00:25:04,168 The work that was done with this instrument completely changed 408 00:25:04,237 --> 00:25:07,605 our understanding of the universe we live in, 409 00:25:07,673 --> 00:25:10,407 and it began to alter our understanding 410 00:25:10,476 --> 00:25:12,142 of our place in it. 411 00:25:12,211 --> 00:25:14,578 As I look at the way in which it's built, 412 00:25:14,647 --> 00:25:19,583 I begin to feel as if I can see into his way of thinking. 413 00:25:19,652 --> 00:25:22,920 It's almost as if he and I are standing together, 414 00:25:22,989 --> 00:25:25,756 he showing how he built it, 415 00:25:25,825 --> 00:25:28,526 me appreciating the instrumentation 416 00:25:28,594 --> 00:25:31,295 we have today to study the universe 417 00:25:31,364 --> 00:25:35,032 given what he did so many years ago. 418 00:25:36,435 --> 00:25:38,936 Galileo used a convex lens to gather light 419 00:25:39,005 --> 00:25:40,604 from wherever he pointed the telescope, 420 00:25:40,673 --> 00:25:43,641 and he used a concave lens to then focus that light 421 00:25:43,709 --> 00:25:46,277 so that he could see the object clearly. 422 00:25:46,345 --> 00:25:49,980 Galileo actually searched through hundreds of pieces of glass 423 00:25:50,049 --> 00:25:53,317 at the Murano glassworks to get just the right pieces 424 00:25:53,386 --> 00:25:55,252 that were close to the shape he needed. 425 00:25:55,321 --> 00:25:57,521 He ground the glass very carefully, 426 00:25:57,590 --> 00:25:59,557 then polished each of the lenses 427 00:25:59,625 --> 00:26:03,494 so that it would be just the right shape to make a perfect image, 428 00:26:03,563 --> 00:26:05,663 using these two lenses. 429 00:26:05,731 --> 00:26:09,033 By applying Ibn Al-Haytham's knowledge of optics 430 00:26:09,101 --> 00:26:11,735 to Lippershey's patent application, 431 00:26:11,804 --> 00:26:14,705 Galileo was able to improve the spyglass's 432 00:26:14,774 --> 00:26:18,642 powers of magnification almost tenfold. 433 00:26:20,346 --> 00:26:24,381 But it's what he did next which would make his name 434 00:26:24,450 --> 00:26:28,018 synonymous with the invention of the telescope. 435 00:26:28,087 --> 00:26:31,789 He held it up and pointed it 436 00:26:31,857 --> 00:26:35,526 at the biggest object in the night sky. 437 00:26:35,595 --> 00:26:38,596 And what he sees when he looks at the moon 438 00:26:38,664 --> 00:26:41,065 is absolutely astonishing. 439 00:26:41,133 --> 00:26:44,201 He takes incredible notes and makes incredible drawings 440 00:26:44,270 --> 00:26:46,537 about what he sees of the moon. 441 00:26:46,606 --> 00:26:49,206 And this was a very big challenge for him at the time, 442 00:26:49,275 --> 00:26:51,375 because his eyepiece didn't allow him 443 00:26:51,444 --> 00:26:52,776 to see the entire moon, 444 00:26:52,845 --> 00:26:55,179 he could only see small bits at a time. 445 00:26:55,247 --> 00:26:59,116 So he would observe, take notes, make some sketches, 446 00:26:59,185 --> 00:27:02,519 and over time, he could then build up an image 447 00:27:02,588 --> 00:27:05,556 of what the moon appeared like through the telescope, 448 00:27:05,625 --> 00:27:07,725 what he could see of the surface of the moon 449 00:27:07,793 --> 00:27:09,627 with its craters and its valleys 450 00:27:09,695 --> 00:27:11,462 and other sorts of features. 451 00:27:11,530 --> 00:27:14,264 It's an entire world unto itself, 452 00:27:14,333 --> 00:27:16,266 and what Galileo's telescope is doing for us 453 00:27:16,335 --> 00:27:19,136 is making objects that hadn't been visible 454 00:27:19,205 --> 00:27:21,572 before now visible to us. 455 00:27:21,641 --> 00:27:24,842 And we begin to realize that there are a great many more stars available 456 00:27:24,910 --> 00:27:27,511 than we had ever realized in the past. 457 00:27:29,849 --> 00:27:31,415 With the birth of these instruments, 458 00:27:31,484 --> 00:27:34,485 suddenly everyone could look up into the sky 459 00:27:34,553 --> 00:27:36,420 and see it for what it is. 460 00:27:36,489 --> 00:27:39,823 He transformed the way we thought about truth and evidence. 461 00:27:39,892 --> 00:27:41,859 We could suddenly see things for ourselves. 462 00:27:41,927 --> 00:27:45,195 We no longer had to accept someone else's authority for that. 463 00:27:45,264 --> 00:27:48,599 It allows other scientists around the world 464 00:27:48,668 --> 00:27:52,136 to become reporters on what the universe is doing, 465 00:27:52,204 --> 00:27:54,371 what nature is presenting us, 466 00:27:54,440 --> 00:27:56,774 how this universe works. 467 00:27:56,842 --> 00:28:01,145 "You will behold through the telescope a host of stars, 468 00:28:01,213 --> 00:28:04,014 "which escape the unassisted sight 469 00:28:04,083 --> 00:28:08,352 so numerous as to be almost beyond belief." 470 00:28:10,489 --> 00:28:14,892 Galileo pushed the limits of our seeing to the moons of Jupiter, 471 00:28:14,960 --> 00:28:16,860 the rings of Saturn, 472 00:28:16,929 --> 00:28:20,431 and ultimately to the edges of our own galaxy, 473 00:28:20,499 --> 00:28:23,000 the milky way. 474 00:28:23,069 --> 00:28:26,704 In the following years, there was an explosion 475 00:28:26,772 --> 00:28:28,238 of telescopes around the world 476 00:28:28,307 --> 00:28:31,508 as lenses grew bigger and more powerful, 477 00:28:31,577 --> 00:28:34,645 then Isaac Newton's mirrors were harnessed 478 00:28:34,714 --> 00:28:37,081 to capture even more light, 479 00:28:37,149 --> 00:28:39,717 extending the power of the telescope 480 00:28:39,785 --> 00:28:43,487 to see even deeper into the cosmos. 481 00:28:46,625 --> 00:28:51,361 But there was still a fundamental limit to the telescope. 482 00:28:51,430 --> 00:28:56,266 The human eye was still part of the technology, 483 00:28:56,335 --> 00:29:01,605 the astronomer limited to drawing what they could see through the eye piece. 484 00:29:05,444 --> 00:29:10,147 To see more, to capture the universe as it really is 485 00:29:10,216 --> 00:29:14,284 would take a breakthrough in Paris 486 00:29:14,353 --> 00:29:18,489 made by chance through a spilt bottle of Mercury. 487 00:29:25,631 --> 00:29:30,367 In the 1830s, taking a picture wasn't exactly easy. 488 00:29:32,438 --> 00:29:34,772 Polish a silver plate, 489 00:29:34,840 --> 00:29:37,908 expose it to iodine to sensitize it, 490 00:29:37,977 --> 00:29:40,544 and then the tricky part, 491 00:29:40,613 --> 00:29:43,514 find a subject that's not going to move 492 00:29:43,582 --> 00:29:46,016 for about 8 hours. 493 00:29:46,085 --> 00:29:50,587 That's how long it took to take a single photograph. 494 00:29:50,656 --> 00:29:53,123 Only the most devoted pioneers 495 00:29:53,192 --> 00:29:55,959 could be bothered to take pictures. 496 00:29:56,028 --> 00:29:59,296 Photographic plates were not very sensitive to light. 497 00:29:59,365 --> 00:30:03,233 So un-sensitive, in fact, as to render the technology 498 00:30:03,302 --> 00:30:06,603 of photography almost useless. 499 00:30:06,672 --> 00:30:11,875 But Parisian Louis Daguerre was determined to change all that. 500 00:30:11,944 --> 00:30:14,478 A showman and theater entrepreneur, 501 00:30:14,547 --> 00:30:18,182 he was motivated by the promise of greater fame and wealth 502 00:30:18,250 --> 00:30:23,654 and devoted years to finding a solution. 503 00:30:23,722 --> 00:30:28,425 One day he placed an aborted photographic plate in his cupboard. 504 00:30:28,494 --> 00:30:31,361 The plate had barely been exposed to light. 505 00:30:31,430 --> 00:30:34,731 Daguerre was saving it for another try. 506 00:30:38,270 --> 00:30:43,373 Weeks later, he pulled it from the cupboard again, 507 00:30:43,442 --> 00:30:47,344 only to find a fully developed photograph on it. 508 00:30:47,413 --> 00:30:50,581 Puzzled, he rummaged in the cupboard 509 00:30:50,649 --> 00:30:53,984 and discovered a split bottle of Mercury. 510 00:30:55,921 --> 00:30:59,156 Could the fumes from the Mercury have enhanced 511 00:30:59,225 --> 00:31:02,693 the light sensitivity of the photographic plate, 512 00:31:02,761 --> 00:31:07,231 meaning that less light is required to take a picture? 513 00:31:07,299 --> 00:31:12,603 To find out, Daguerre put his theory to the test. 514 00:31:18,210 --> 00:31:19,977 My name is Binh Dahn, 515 00:31:20,045 --> 00:31:22,512 and I'm an assistant professor of photography 516 00:31:22,581 --> 00:31:25,649 at San Jose state university. 517 00:31:27,953 --> 00:31:29,553 I'm heading out into the desert 518 00:31:29,622 --> 00:31:33,523 close to where I live to recreate Daguerre's experiment. 519 00:31:50,609 --> 00:31:54,411 It is 8:00 in the morning, and Louis is just adding 520 00:31:54,480 --> 00:31:57,714 the final Polish to his silver plate. 521 00:32:00,686 --> 00:32:03,854 And he looks out his window, 522 00:32:03,923 --> 00:32:08,725 and he sees this beautiful Paris street scene... 523 00:32:08,794 --> 00:32:11,628 People walking down the street, 524 00:32:11,697 --> 00:32:16,733 horses carrying people, and wagons. 525 00:32:16,802 --> 00:32:21,738 So, Louis takes a light-sensitive plate... 526 00:32:24,576 --> 00:32:27,311 He sets up his camera... 527 00:32:30,049 --> 00:32:33,450 And he inserts his plate 528 00:32:33,519 --> 00:32:38,021 and exposed the scene for 10 minutes. 529 00:33:00,746 --> 00:33:02,646 And then he closed the lens, 530 00:33:02,715 --> 00:33:04,581 he removed the plate, 531 00:33:04,650 --> 00:33:09,519 and he runs to his Mercury pot and developed the plate. 532 00:33:19,765 --> 00:33:25,335 Louis has to wait before he sees this image. 533 00:33:30,843 --> 00:33:34,411 There were tons of people walking the street here, 534 00:33:34,480 --> 00:33:37,681 and they disappear because they were moving. 535 00:33:37,750 --> 00:33:42,019 The man that was standing still getting his boots shined 536 00:33:42,087 --> 00:33:44,554 was recorded into history. 537 00:33:44,623 --> 00:33:49,993 Even Daguerre was overwhelmed with the quality of this image. 538 00:33:51,597 --> 00:33:54,498 And it's just like this scene here. 539 00:33:56,001 --> 00:33:58,035 This is a picture I've just taken. 540 00:33:58,103 --> 00:34:00,370 It's about a minute exposure. 541 00:34:00,439 --> 00:34:04,041 So those who were standing still were recorded onto this plate here. 542 00:34:04,109 --> 00:34:07,477 Other folks were moving around taking in the scene, 543 00:34:07,546 --> 00:34:09,980 so they became ghostly. 544 00:34:10,049 --> 00:34:13,350 Louis feels it was his lucky day. 545 00:34:13,419 --> 00:34:20,057 Finally, he was able to record a person standing there. 546 00:34:20,125 --> 00:34:24,194 It's like the most wonderful experience in life 547 00:34:24,263 --> 00:34:28,365 to see that you're able to record history 548 00:34:28,434 --> 00:34:30,033 just at that one moment. 549 00:34:30,102 --> 00:34:32,803 And that, for me, is just, like, an amazing quality. 550 00:34:32,871 --> 00:34:36,339 It gives me tears just to think about it. 551 00:34:38,911 --> 00:34:42,045 Great news for photographers, 552 00:34:42,114 --> 00:34:44,481 and for the rest of us, too. 553 00:34:44,550 --> 00:34:48,785 But what does it have to do with the telescope? 554 00:34:48,854 --> 00:34:51,521 When the technology of photography was combined 555 00:34:51,590 --> 00:34:55,659 with the magnification capabilities of the telescope, 556 00:34:55,727 --> 00:35:00,230 we go from Galileo's hand-drawn view of the moon 557 00:35:00,299 --> 00:35:06,103 to this exquisite image, the dawn of modern astronomy. 558 00:35:07,706 --> 00:35:09,639 With the ability to track the night sky, 559 00:35:09,708 --> 00:35:13,510 suddenly we're able to see further into the universe 560 00:35:13,579 --> 00:35:15,612 than ever before. 561 00:35:15,681 --> 00:35:23,553 So daguerreotype became a tool in science to record the night sky. 562 00:35:23,622 --> 00:35:25,922 This was a development that the early pioneers 563 00:35:25,991 --> 00:35:28,492 of photography couldn't possibly have imagined. 564 00:35:28,560 --> 00:35:31,528 Photography, coupled with the telescope, 565 00:35:31,597 --> 00:35:34,931 proved to be a powerful combination of technologies, 566 00:35:35,000 --> 00:35:38,802 changing our view of the cosmos once more. 567 00:35:38,871 --> 00:35:41,538 We'd successfully brought the stars closer, 568 00:35:41,607 --> 00:35:43,540 but how close were they? 569 00:35:43,609 --> 00:35:48,245 Astronomy needed a yardstick to give scale to our vision. 570 00:35:50,048 --> 00:35:54,251 And unexpectedly, it would come from a boom in real estate. 571 00:35:59,291 --> 00:36:03,193 In the 1840s, New York was on the up. 572 00:36:03,262 --> 00:36:06,163 Investors were lining up to pour money 573 00:36:06,231 --> 00:36:09,132 into a building boom in the big apple. 574 00:36:12,838 --> 00:36:17,841 Entrepreneur Cortland Palmer was about to make a fortune in Manhattan. 575 00:36:17,910 --> 00:36:20,911 By the time he died in 1874, 576 00:36:20,979 --> 00:36:22,312 he was a multi-millionaire 577 00:36:22,381 --> 00:36:25,015 and left his money to his children. 578 00:36:25,083 --> 00:36:28,251 His daughter, Mary Anna Palmer draper, 579 00:36:28,320 --> 00:36:32,422 was married a pioneer of astro-photography. 580 00:36:34,193 --> 00:36:36,092 Convinced of its potential, 581 00:36:36,161 --> 00:36:38,495 she made a substantial donation 582 00:36:38,564 --> 00:36:43,600 to Harvard university for a major astronomy project. 583 00:36:43,669 --> 00:36:45,835 The Harvard observatory at the time 584 00:36:45,904 --> 00:36:48,505 was very interested in astrophotography 585 00:36:48,574 --> 00:36:51,408 and wanted to make an entire map of the sky 586 00:36:51,476 --> 00:36:53,310 with these photographs that were taken both 587 00:36:53,378 --> 00:36:56,179 in the northern and the Southern hemisphere. 588 00:37:01,920 --> 00:37:04,020 So now that you have thousands of photographs, 589 00:37:04,089 --> 00:37:07,891 you needed a team to organize them and study them. 590 00:37:07,960 --> 00:37:10,594 The Harvard observatory hired a team of women 591 00:37:10,662 --> 00:37:15,265 who were specifically studying the stars using glass plates, 592 00:37:15,334 --> 00:37:17,601 which was very unusual back then 593 00:37:17,669 --> 00:37:20,109 because there weren't very many women working in the sciences. 594 00:37:20,172 --> 00:37:22,539 So these women did number crunching all day, 595 00:37:22,608 --> 00:37:25,609 and that's why they were known as the human computers. 596 00:37:34,886 --> 00:37:36,886 Some of the women that were working here, 597 00:37:36,955 --> 00:37:39,522 their job was to measure the brightness of stars. 598 00:37:39,591 --> 00:37:41,725 Some of the tools that these women used 599 00:37:41,793 --> 00:37:43,693 included fly spankers, 600 00:37:43,762 --> 00:37:45,795 which were tiny little pieces of glass plates 601 00:37:45,864 --> 00:37:48,164 that had different sized stars on them. 602 00:37:48,233 --> 00:37:50,967 It was called a fly spanker because it was too little 603 00:37:51,036 --> 00:37:53,003 to do a fly much damage. 604 00:37:53,071 --> 00:37:55,639 So as you can see, there are different sized dots 605 00:37:55,707 --> 00:37:57,207 with numbers written next to them, 606 00:37:57,276 --> 00:37:59,276 and these were used as the standard for measuring. 607 00:37:59,344 --> 00:38:02,879 So say you wanted to measure this little "a" star here. 608 00:38:02,948 --> 00:38:04,781 You could bring up your fly spanker 609 00:38:04,850 --> 00:38:06,516 and try to find the best match, 610 00:38:06,585 --> 00:38:09,719 and then that was the brightness of your star. 611 00:38:09,788 --> 00:38:12,255 But this impressive star catalogue 612 00:38:12,324 --> 00:38:14,424 was missing vital information... 613 00:38:14,493 --> 00:38:15,925 Distance. 614 00:38:15,994 --> 00:38:18,962 After all, if two stars have identical brightness 615 00:38:19,031 --> 00:38:20,897 as seen from the earth, 616 00:38:20,966 --> 00:38:23,566 it doesn't mean they are the same distance away. 617 00:38:23,635 --> 00:38:27,971 One star could be quite dim in reality, yet quite close, 618 00:38:28,040 --> 00:38:31,975 and the other, huge and powerful, but a long way off, 619 00:38:32,044 --> 00:38:35,178 and still they would look the same from earth. 620 00:38:35,247 --> 00:38:38,581 Without knowing the true brightness of a star, 621 00:38:38,650 --> 00:38:42,619 astronomers had no idea how far away it was. 622 00:38:42,688 --> 00:38:45,155 But one woman had an idea. 623 00:38:45,223 --> 00:38:49,926 Henrietta Leavitt was known for being a very meticulous worker. 624 00:38:49,995 --> 00:38:52,062 She often stayed late into the evening 625 00:38:52,130 --> 00:38:53,741 to make sure that she measured all of the stars 626 00:38:53,765 --> 00:38:55,699 that she wanted to measure that day. 627 00:38:55,767 --> 00:38:58,935 And I think that really comes through when you look at her notes. 628 00:39:00,272 --> 00:39:01,938 Through this very meticulous approach, 629 00:39:02,007 --> 00:39:03,573 she was able to have a breakthrough 630 00:39:03,642 --> 00:39:06,743 that is now known as the Leavitt law. 631 00:39:06,812 --> 00:39:08,845 Leavitt's law is a little complex, 632 00:39:08,914 --> 00:39:12,749 but it's the key to unlocking the universe. 633 00:39:12,818 --> 00:39:17,120 There are some stars that regularly get slightly dimmer over time 634 00:39:17,189 --> 00:39:20,557 before returning to their former glory. 635 00:39:20,625 --> 00:39:26,463 These variable stars have a kind of heartbeat of brightness. 636 00:39:26,531 --> 00:39:29,966 Leavitt studied a group of them and discovered 637 00:39:30,035 --> 00:39:32,535 that the dimmer ones beat quickly. 638 00:39:32,604 --> 00:39:35,705 The ones that are brighter beat more slowly. 639 00:39:35,774 --> 00:39:39,843 It's as if the big, bright stars have a slow heartbeat 640 00:39:39,911 --> 00:39:43,613 and the smaller, dimmer ones, a fast one. 641 00:39:43,682 --> 00:39:47,250 Find a variable star anywhere in the sky 642 00:39:47,319 --> 00:39:51,554 and its heartbeat gives its true brightness away. 643 00:39:51,623 --> 00:39:54,891 Now its distance can be measured by how bright 644 00:39:54,960 --> 00:39:57,327 it appears from the earth. 645 00:39:57,396 --> 00:39:59,929 And bam, you have a yardstick for astronomers 646 00:39:59,998 --> 00:40:02,732 so that they could start to measure distances in space 647 00:40:02,801 --> 00:40:05,468 in ways that they couldn't do before. 648 00:40:07,973 --> 00:40:09,973 For the first time, astronomers were able 649 00:40:10,041 --> 00:40:12,976 to understand exactly how large our galaxy is. 650 00:40:13,044 --> 00:40:16,579 So this 19th-century property boom in New York 651 00:40:16,648 --> 00:40:20,383 had accidentally unlocked the scale of the universe. 652 00:40:22,487 --> 00:40:24,921 Henrietta Leavitt's discovery allowed us 653 00:40:24,990 --> 00:40:28,191 to measure distances to stars very accurately. 654 00:40:28,260 --> 00:40:31,294 For the first time, we could really chart the cosmos 655 00:40:31,363 --> 00:40:34,931 and create a map of the visible universe. 656 00:40:36,435 --> 00:40:37,867 By the 1920s, 657 00:40:37,936 --> 00:40:41,237 we could see the stars better than ever before. 658 00:40:41,306 --> 00:40:45,041 And we now we knew how far away they were, too. 659 00:40:45,110 --> 00:40:50,713 But was this the entire universe or was there more out there? 660 00:40:52,417 --> 00:40:56,419 Tantalizingly, there on our photographic plates, 661 00:40:56,488 --> 00:41:00,190 right at the limits of what our telescopes could record at the time, 662 00:41:00,258 --> 00:41:04,961 are a series of cloudy patches, like this one, 663 00:41:05,030 --> 00:41:08,932 known then as the Andromeda nebula. 664 00:41:10,569 --> 00:41:13,369 The exact nature of these cloudy patches 665 00:41:13,438 --> 00:41:15,872 was the burning question of the age, 666 00:41:15,941 --> 00:41:18,541 the so-called great debate, 667 00:41:18,610 --> 00:41:20,877 because the answer to this question 668 00:41:20,946 --> 00:41:25,782 would reveal a fundamental truth about our universe. 669 00:41:25,851 --> 00:41:27,617 If you looked at the evidence 670 00:41:27,686 --> 00:41:30,520 that could be gathered through telescopes at the time, 671 00:41:30,589 --> 00:41:33,323 the debate, of course, surrounded this idea 672 00:41:33,391 --> 00:41:38,495 of whether there were a number of galaxies like our galaxy. 673 00:41:38,563 --> 00:41:41,598 And this debate raged on. 674 00:41:41,666 --> 00:41:44,601 Were these blurry patches of light 675 00:41:44,669 --> 00:41:46,836 nearby clumps of gas and dust 676 00:41:46,905 --> 00:41:51,174 or were they a much more distant collection of stars, 677 00:41:51,243 --> 00:41:54,177 galaxies in their own right? 678 00:41:54,246 --> 00:41:57,347 To answer this question, philanthropists funded 679 00:41:57,415 --> 00:42:00,216 the construction of an exciting new telescope, 680 00:42:00,285 --> 00:42:03,486 the largest telescope at the time. 681 00:42:05,056 --> 00:42:07,156 It was to be built on mount Wilson, 682 00:42:07,225 --> 00:42:11,194 5,700 feet above the city of Los Angeles. 683 00:42:12,864 --> 00:42:16,566 Transporting the giant 8-foot mirror up the mountain 684 00:42:16,635 --> 00:42:19,802 pushed the construction team to their limits. 685 00:42:21,640 --> 00:42:25,508 Operating the telescope would prove even harder. 686 00:42:27,012 --> 00:42:29,479 Even with what was, for that time, 687 00:42:29,548 --> 00:42:32,215 a very modern and highly-capable instrument, 688 00:42:32,284 --> 00:42:34,150 the 100-inch hooker reflector, 689 00:42:34,219 --> 00:42:35,885 it still was an instrument 690 00:42:35,954 --> 00:42:39,756 that you had to work really hard to operate 691 00:42:39,824 --> 00:42:42,559 in a way to bring you the information you needed. 692 00:42:42,627 --> 00:42:46,529 It wasn't as though you could simply put a camera on the telescope, 693 00:42:46,598 --> 00:42:48,831 take a picture, and you'd have your information. 694 00:42:48,900 --> 00:42:50,934 Objects that were out there, 695 00:42:51,002 --> 00:42:54,203 like the great nebula in Andromeda, 696 00:42:54,272 --> 00:42:56,906 were still very fuzzy, cloud-like objects. 697 00:42:56,975 --> 00:42:58,441 So you couldn't just take a picture, 698 00:42:58,510 --> 00:43:00,276 and that would be the end of your work. 699 00:43:00,345 --> 00:43:04,047 In fact, you had to painstakingly take photographs, 700 00:43:04,115 --> 00:43:07,517 night after night after night after night. 701 00:43:07,586 --> 00:43:13,423 That task would fall to a 29-year-old astronomer, Edwin Hubble. 702 00:43:13,491 --> 00:43:16,259 Hubble was a very unusual individual. 703 00:43:16,328 --> 00:43:18,861 And we can see that if we look at his early history. 704 00:43:18,930 --> 00:43:20,330 Before he became an astronomer, 705 00:43:20,398 --> 00:43:22,966 he was a very accomplished athlete. 706 00:43:23,034 --> 00:43:25,602 He was a boxer. He was a baseball player. 707 00:43:25,670 --> 00:43:28,137 He did all sorts of athletic pursuits, 708 00:43:28,206 --> 00:43:30,506 but he wanted to be the winner. 709 00:43:32,143 --> 00:43:34,210 He needed to be that person, 710 00:43:34,279 --> 00:43:38,214 because this work required such attention to detail, 711 00:43:38,283 --> 00:43:42,619 and he wanted to be at the highest level 712 00:43:42,687 --> 00:43:45,154 of accomplishment in this field. 713 00:43:45,223 --> 00:43:49,792 In 1923, Hubble began the painstaking task 714 00:43:49,861 --> 00:43:53,830 of repeatedly photographing the Andromeda nebula. 715 00:43:55,233 --> 00:43:56,553 Hooker might have been the biggest 716 00:43:56,601 --> 00:43:58,501 and best instrument at the time, 717 00:43:58,570 --> 00:44:01,571 but tracking tiny patches of the night sky with accuracy 718 00:44:01,640 --> 00:44:05,508 as the earth turns is still a daunting challenge. 719 00:44:08,146 --> 00:44:12,482 Hubble had to actually be in the observatory at the telescope 720 00:44:12,550 --> 00:44:15,918 collecting the data, trying to gather information 721 00:44:15,987 --> 00:44:18,554 that had never been collected before, 722 00:44:18,623 --> 00:44:22,859 and there were so many different kinds of roadblocks 723 00:44:22,927 --> 00:44:26,162 he had to overcome in order to make this happen. 724 00:44:26,231 --> 00:44:28,798 Not only do you have to move the telescope itself, 725 00:44:28,867 --> 00:44:32,702 but you also have to move the dome so the slip lines up perfectly, 726 00:44:32,771 --> 00:44:34,737 and the whole building has to be in alignment 727 00:44:34,806 --> 00:44:36,406 with the telescope to work. 728 00:44:36,474 --> 00:44:38,775 And it wasn't simply pressing a button. 729 00:44:38,843 --> 00:44:41,177 This was a very manual operation. 730 00:44:41,246 --> 00:44:45,248 In some instances, an exposure might last several nights, 731 00:44:45,316 --> 00:44:47,717 which meant that you had to reposition the telescope 732 00:44:47,786 --> 00:44:50,053 to exactly the right place the next night 733 00:44:50,121 --> 00:44:51,721 that you wanted to take an exposure, 734 00:44:51,790 --> 00:44:54,524 until you built up enough of an image on a plate 735 00:44:54,592 --> 00:44:57,894 to give you some data that you could then use. 736 00:45:00,031 --> 00:45:01,964 As an astronomer who's spent many a cold night 737 00:45:02,033 --> 00:45:03,733 at a telescope gathering data, 738 00:45:03,802 --> 00:45:05,835 I have a deep respect for his work. 739 00:45:05,904 --> 00:45:08,571 Each image he gathered was hard won, 740 00:45:08,640 --> 00:45:11,541 because he had to constantly re-adjust the telescope 741 00:45:11,609 --> 00:45:13,576 to keep it accurately tracking. 742 00:45:13,645 --> 00:45:16,546 It took time after time after time of him photographing 743 00:45:16,614 --> 00:45:20,283 over and over and over again to get the right resolution, 744 00:45:20,351 --> 00:45:21,784 to get everything nice and stable 745 00:45:21,853 --> 00:45:24,053 to deliver what he needed. 746 00:45:24,122 --> 00:45:29,492 With every image he gathered, the universe got bigger. 747 00:45:45,243 --> 00:45:48,177 In this drawer are the hundreds, the thousands of plates 748 00:45:48,246 --> 00:45:52,582 that Edwin P. Hubble worked so hard to collect. 749 00:45:52,650 --> 00:45:56,486 And getting that first plate was incredibly important 750 00:45:56,554 --> 00:46:00,356 because he can reach deeper into the universe 751 00:46:00,425 --> 00:46:03,960 than anyone has ever reached before. 752 00:46:04,028 --> 00:46:07,530 Those results were absolutely astounding, 753 00:46:07,599 --> 00:46:10,800 the first proof that instead of seeing a nebula, 754 00:46:10,869 --> 00:46:15,505 it's really a galaxy, a collection of stars. 755 00:46:15,573 --> 00:46:17,340 That plate settled the debate, 756 00:46:17,408 --> 00:46:20,943 the Andromeda nebula was made of stars. 757 00:46:23,848 --> 00:46:26,015 But this raised another question. 758 00:46:26,084 --> 00:46:27,517 Was it part of our galaxy? 759 00:46:27,585 --> 00:46:30,853 To find out, Hubble needed to find a variable star 760 00:46:30,922 --> 00:46:34,157 to apply Henrietta’s measuring stick. 761 00:46:34,225 --> 00:46:36,659 So one image isn't going to do it for him. 762 00:46:36,728 --> 00:46:40,763 He has to take multiple images over and over and over again 763 00:46:40,832 --> 00:46:44,600 so that he can see the variability of that particular star, 764 00:46:44,669 --> 00:46:48,704 and he can identify that one star out of all the other stars 765 00:46:48,773 --> 00:46:50,807 that are found in that galaxy. 766 00:46:52,443 --> 00:46:53,976 And here it is. 767 00:46:54,045 --> 00:46:57,914 This is the extraordinary plate in which Hubble captured 768 00:46:57,982 --> 00:47:00,082 that measuring stick he needed. 769 00:47:00,151 --> 00:47:02,118 In fact, up here in the top corner, 770 00:47:02,187 --> 00:47:06,656 you can see where he scribbled in red letters "v-a-r," 771 00:47:06,724 --> 00:47:08,357 meaning variable. 772 00:47:08,426 --> 00:47:11,694 This was the plate that presented all the information 773 00:47:11,763 --> 00:47:15,898 he needed to understand the true nature of the universe. 774 00:47:17,635 --> 00:47:20,436 Using Leavitt's law to calculate the distance, 775 00:47:20,505 --> 00:47:24,340 it was clear that Andromeda was very, very far away. 776 00:47:24,409 --> 00:47:29,045 What he was looking at was truly revolutionary. 777 00:47:29,113 --> 00:47:34,250 What was being seen were galaxies just like ours. 778 00:47:34,319 --> 00:47:36,652 Hubble didn't just find a bunch of new stars, 779 00:47:36,721 --> 00:47:39,021 he found an entirely new galaxy. 780 00:47:39,090 --> 00:47:41,624 In seeing the Andromeda galaxy for what it was, 781 00:47:41,693 --> 00:47:45,628 Hubble really changed how we perceived our place in the universe. 782 00:47:47,265 --> 00:47:49,065 Not content with discovering 783 00:47:49,133 --> 00:47:51,567 that Andromeda is a distant galaxy, 784 00:47:51,636 --> 00:47:54,437 Hubble devoted the following years to photographing 785 00:47:54,505 --> 00:47:58,107 more and more galaxies through the giant telescope. 786 00:47:58,176 --> 00:48:02,345 And what he discovered was even more astounding. 787 00:48:03,848 --> 00:48:05,815 Every galaxy he examined appeared to be 788 00:48:05,884 --> 00:48:09,318 moving away from us at a tremendous speed. 789 00:48:09,387 --> 00:48:14,523 And the more distant the galaxy, the faster it was receding. 790 00:48:14,592 --> 00:48:18,427 Astronomers had always thought of the universe as static, 791 00:48:18,496 --> 00:48:21,564 but what Edwin Hubble revealed was that 792 00:48:21,633 --> 00:48:25,101 the universe is expanding. 793 00:48:25,169 --> 00:48:28,938 What's more, if we run the cosmic clock backwards, 794 00:48:29,007 --> 00:48:30,539 everything would have emerged 795 00:48:30,608 --> 00:48:33,542 from a single point of infinite density, 796 00:48:33,611 --> 00:48:39,215 marking the beginning of the universe, the big bang. 797 00:48:40,818 --> 00:48:42,485 It's such a profound idea 798 00:48:42,553 --> 00:48:46,756 that it triggered a whole new realm of cosmological inquiry. 799 00:48:46,824 --> 00:48:50,359 But no matter how advanced technology became, 800 00:48:50,428 --> 00:48:54,096 telescopes were limited by being on earth, 801 00:48:54,165 --> 00:48:56,499 peering out through an atmosphere 802 00:48:56,567 --> 00:49:00,469 that distorts our view of the night sky. 803 00:49:00,538 --> 00:49:04,240 It would take another revolution to place telescopes 804 00:49:04,309 --> 00:49:08,311 in a place where they could truly see the universe. 805 00:49:10,748 --> 00:49:13,482 The world's first major space-based 806 00:49:13,551 --> 00:49:18,287 optical telescope was launched in 1990, 807 00:49:18,356 --> 00:49:22,058 and it was named after the man who inspired it. 808 00:49:23,661 --> 00:49:27,096 Above the atmosphere and with a clear view of the sky, 809 00:49:27,165 --> 00:49:30,700 the Hubble space telescope could take the longest 810 00:49:30,768 --> 00:49:35,604 time exposures in the history of astronomical photography, 811 00:49:35,673 --> 00:49:40,910 attempting to do what our ancient ancestors could only have dreamed of... 812 00:49:40,979 --> 00:49:44,613 To see the furthest reaches of the universe 813 00:49:44,682 --> 00:49:47,450 in exquisite detail. 814 00:49:47,518 --> 00:49:52,321 Brett Salmon and Dan Coe are two of the lucky astronomers 815 00:49:52,390 --> 00:49:54,924 at the space telescope science institute 816 00:49:54,993 --> 00:49:58,461 who get to work with Hubble every day. 817 00:49:58,529 --> 00:50:01,330 We wanted to use Hubble to look 818 00:50:01,399 --> 00:50:03,532 into the deepest parts of the universe, 819 00:50:03,601 --> 00:50:07,169 and so one of the simplest ideas was to just 820 00:50:07,238 --> 00:50:09,205 invest a large amount of Hubble’s time 821 00:50:09,273 --> 00:50:14,176 to stare at this black patch of sky for a really long time. 822 00:50:14,245 --> 00:50:17,079 In 1995, the institute's director 823 00:50:17,148 --> 00:50:23,486 Robert Williams decided to do this experiment during the Christmas vacation. 824 00:50:23,554 --> 00:50:28,924 Over 10 days, Hubble collected 342 separate exposures, 825 00:50:28,993 --> 00:50:33,596 adding up to more than 100 hours of observation time, 826 00:50:33,664 --> 00:50:36,899 the longest ever attempted. 827 00:50:36,968 --> 00:50:39,068 It was a gamble. 828 00:50:39,137 --> 00:50:41,637 No one knew what to expect. 829 00:50:41,706 --> 00:50:44,907 The first time that Hubble looked at a blank field, 830 00:50:44,976 --> 00:50:47,243 it was a bit risky. 831 00:50:47,311 --> 00:50:49,745 Some people thought there might not be anything there 832 00:50:49,814 --> 00:50:51,147 in a blank patch of sky. 833 00:50:51,215 --> 00:50:52,515 But that risk was rewarded. 834 00:50:52,583 --> 00:50:54,450 In that small patch of sky, 835 00:50:54,519 --> 00:50:57,019 about the size of a grain of sand at arm's length, 836 00:50:57,088 --> 00:50:59,522 we saw thousands of galaxies. 837 00:50:59,590 --> 00:51:02,358 The Hubble deep field is surprising to everyone 838 00:51:02,427 --> 00:51:05,895 because almost everything in that image is a galaxy. 839 00:51:05,963 --> 00:51:08,030 Just in that very small patch of sky, 840 00:51:08,099 --> 00:51:09,899 there are thousands of galaxies. 841 00:51:09,967 --> 00:51:12,401 It was such a success that since then, 842 00:51:12,470 --> 00:51:15,271 the technique has been tried again and again, 843 00:51:15,339 --> 00:51:19,809 and each time we see even more galaxies. 844 00:51:19,877 --> 00:51:21,677 So over the entire sky, 845 00:51:21,746 --> 00:51:24,180 there are probably trillions of galaxies. 846 00:51:24,248 --> 00:51:27,450 And every galaxy has billions of stars in it, 847 00:51:27,518 --> 00:51:30,152 each star being like our sun, more or less. 848 00:51:30,221 --> 00:51:32,888 And so, the universe is so vast, 849 00:51:32,957 --> 00:51:36,559 and it really makes you feel insignificant in a way, 850 00:51:36,627 --> 00:51:38,527 but we're also very special, that we're able 851 00:51:38,596 --> 00:51:42,531 to build telescopes to observe all of those galaxies. 852 00:51:42,600 --> 00:51:46,335 This discovery, that so many galaxies exist, 853 00:51:46,404 --> 00:51:51,207 has changed our perspective on our place in the universe once again. 854 00:51:51,275 --> 00:51:54,977 It's impossible to look at these deep field images 855 00:51:55,046 --> 00:51:56,779 and not feel intimidated 856 00:51:56,848 --> 00:51:59,548 by the extraordinary depth to the cosmos. 857 00:51:59,617 --> 00:52:03,953 The galaxies we've now mapped across the universe 858 00:52:04,021 --> 00:52:06,088 form their own webs of matter, 859 00:52:06,157 --> 00:52:09,458 the largest structures ever discovered. 860 00:52:09,527 --> 00:52:11,560 This type of work is very exciting. 861 00:52:11,629 --> 00:52:13,929 You're discovering the most distant galaxies known 862 00:52:13,998 --> 00:52:16,332 that people haven't seen before. 863 00:52:16,400 --> 00:52:18,112 Here's the candidate that we were talking about. 864 00:52:18,136 --> 00:52:20,269 Kind of zoom in here. 865 00:52:20,338 --> 00:52:22,104 And so, we're really looking forward 866 00:52:22,173 --> 00:52:24,807 to the James Webb space telescope starting to write 867 00:52:24,876 --> 00:52:27,276 that first chapter of cosmic history for us. 868 00:52:27,345 --> 00:52:30,279 With the new James Webb space telescope, 869 00:52:30,348 --> 00:52:34,917 we should be able to see as far as physics allows. 870 00:52:34,986 --> 00:52:39,788 It's a wonder that we, humans on this little planet, 871 00:52:39,857 --> 00:52:44,126 over in a corner of the universe someplace, can understand it. 872 00:52:44,195 --> 00:52:47,897 That, to me, just is the most amazing thing. 873 00:52:47,965 --> 00:52:50,366 Once more, we're on the brink 874 00:52:50,434 --> 00:52:54,537 of another revolution in our understanding of the cosmos. 875 00:52:54,605 --> 00:52:58,974 This is our latest leap in the story of the telescope, 876 00:52:59,043 --> 00:53:01,510 an invention that's ultimately given us 877 00:53:01,579 --> 00:53:03,779 a glimpse at the edges of the universe, 878 00:53:03,848 --> 00:53:08,884 and in doing so, a new perspective on our place within it. 879 00:53:10,154 --> 00:53:12,922 Thanks to a technology from warfare 880 00:53:12,990 --> 00:53:15,925 which today lifts our state-of-the-art telescopes 881 00:53:15,993 --> 00:53:18,494 high above the atmosphere, 882 00:53:18,563 --> 00:53:21,163 to the accidents and experiments in chemistry, 883 00:53:21,232 --> 00:53:24,600 which gave us clear glass and photography. 884 00:53:24,669 --> 00:53:27,603 The marvel of medieval mathematics, 885 00:53:27,672 --> 00:53:32,208 and the hunter gatherers who first attempted to bring the stars closer, 886 00:53:32,276 --> 00:53:35,544 today we all have a view of the universe 887 00:53:35,613 --> 00:53:40,816 which connects us to a cosmos from which we have all come. 888 00:53:40,885 --> 00:53:45,521 Perhaps this is the real gift of the revolution 889 00:53:45,590 --> 00:53:48,624 that has given us the telescope. 890 00:53:51,729 --> 00:53:52,928 Stay tuned for a peek 891 00:53:52,997 --> 00:53:54,396 at the next "Breakthrough." 892 00:53:56,367 --> 00:53:57,633 Next time on "Breakthrough," 893 00:53:57,702 --> 00:53:59,301 the story of how we took to the sky, 894 00:53:59,370 --> 00:54:02,037 a tale full of extraordinary accidents 895 00:54:02,106 --> 00:54:04,273 and bizarre connections. 896 00:54:04,342 --> 00:54:08,143 It involves the ill-fated penny-farthing bicycle 897 00:54:08,212 --> 00:54:11,046 and several trips to the beach, 898 00:54:11,115 --> 00:54:14,583 a visionary student, 899 00:54:14,652 --> 00:54:17,553 and a legendary genius, 900 00:54:17,622 --> 00:54:20,522 to give us our great superpower... 901 00:54:20,591 --> 00:54:23,359 The ability to fly. 902 00:54:29,900 --> 00:54:31,567 To order "Breakthrough: The ideas 903 00:54:31,636 --> 00:54:33,369 that changed the world" on DVD, 904 00:54:33,437 --> 00:54:37,373 visit shoppbs, or call 1-800-play-pbs. 905 00:54:37,441 --> 00:54:40,876 This program is also available on Amazon prime video.