Mirror, Mirror & A History Of The Human Love Affair With ReflectionBasic Books, 2003 M07 1 - 416 pages Of all human inventions, the mirror is perhaps the one most closely connected to our own consciousness. As our first technology for contemplation of the self, the mirror is arguably as important an invention as the wheel. Mirror Mirror is the fascinating story of the mirror's invention, refinement, and use in an astonishing range of human activities--from the fantastic mirrored rooms that wealthy Romans created for their orgies to the mirror's key role in the use and understanding of light. Pendergrast spins tales of the 2,500year mystery of whether Archimedes and his "burning mirror" really set faraway Roman ships on fire; the medieval Venetian glassmakers, who perfected the technique of making large, flat mirrors from clear glass and for whom any attempt to leave their cloistered island was punishable by death; Isaac Newton, whose experiments with sunlight on mirrors once left him blinded for three days; the artist David Hockney, who holds controversial ideas about Renaissance artists and their use of optical devices; and George Ellery Hale, the manic-depressive astronomer and telescope enthusiast who inspired (and gave his name to) the twentieth century's largest ground-based telescope. Like mirrors themselves, Mirror Mirror is a book of endless wonder and fascination. |
Contents
The Mirror of the Soul | 1 |
Magic Visions | 29 |
Fields of Light | 53 |
Copyright | |
15 other sections not shown
Other editions - View all
Mirror, Mirror: A History Of The Human Love Affair With Reflection Mark Pendergrast Limited preview - 2009 |
Mirror, Mirror: A History Of The Human Love Affair With Reflection Mark Pendergrast No preview available - 2009 |
Common terms and phrases
adaptive optics Aden Meinel Alhacen Angel angle appeared Archimedes artist astronomers beam beauty bounced British called camera camera obscura century colors concave mirror convex mirror cosmetics courtesy created Descartes earth Eyck face feet Feng Shui figure flat mirror focal French galaxies Giacconi grinding Hale heavens Herschel hole Hubble huge human Huygens inches infrared invented John Dee John Herschel kaleidoscopes Kepler Kitt Peak laser later lenses light look magic mirrors mathematical Meinel metal mirrors Milky mirror-making NASA nebulae Newton night object Observatory observed optician painting Palomar paraboloid paraboloid mirror picture planets polished prism produced radio mirror radio waves rainbow rays reflecting telescope reflector refracting refractor Ritchey Roger Angel rors Saint-Gobain Schmidt Science scientific scientists scryer scrying silver solar Space Telescope speculum spherical stars Stellafane surface tele took tube turned universe wavelengths William William Herschel wrote x-ray