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The Perfect Machine: The Building the Palomar Telescope
The Perfect Machine The Building the Palomar Telescope Author:Ronald Florence Almost a half-century after is completion, the 200-inch Palomar telescope remains an unparalleled combination of vast scale and microscope detail. As huge as the Patheon of Rome and as heavy as the Statue of Liberty, this magnificent instrument is so precisely built that its seventeen-foot mirror was hand-polished to a tolerance of 2/1,000,000 o... more »f an inch. The telescope's construction drove some to the brink of madness, made others fearful that mortals might glimpse heaven, and transfixed an entire nation. Ronald Florence weaves into his account of the creation of "the prefect machine" a stirring chronicle of ht birth of Big Science and a poignant rendering of an America mired in the depression yet reaching for the stars.« less