How Early Could It Have Happened?

[Drew Bedo]

What is the earliest lens . . .1400s-1500s?

The Egyptians made glass in the Bronze Age (pre-1100 BC). Could they have made relatively colorless glass? What about bubbles? Could the Romans?

What was the Renaissance era breakthrough on optical glass and lenses?

[tgtaylor]

See https://www.spiritsofsilver.com/gall...little_history - especially the 2d and 3d paragraphs.

[Jason Greenberg Motamedi]

I think an important point is that Daguerreotypy was not the first form of or mechanism for photography, it was the first commercially viable form of photography. It built off of the industrial revolution (winding down by 1839) and its practice of standardization. Niepce and likely others made images, but Daguerre made a product, and thanks to the French government, which held the patent, it was available to all (unlike Talbot's process).

All that said, I think iodine was the key compound, at least for silver-based processes.

[Tin Can]

History of optics

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_optics

[Tin Can]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeli...ope_technology

[Tin Can]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_photography

[Tin Can]

The story of photon graphs, aka lens aided drawings may be very old

pre history

found glass, a eureka moment, a drawing made

now obliterated in time

a lot of 'stuff' is never written

even now

mysteries

[Vaughn]

What is the earliest lens . . .1400s-1500s?

The Egyptians made glass in the Bronze Age (pre-1100 BC). Could they have made relatively colorless glass? What about bubbles? Could the Romans?

What was the Renaissance era breakthrough on optical glass and lenses?

So the big question is then, when did the first ant get fried with a magnifying glass?

[Drew Bedo]

Off topic but a relevant tangent:

Fermented beverages are at least as old as the pyramids. There are hieroglyphics describing bread making and beer brewing . . .both involving fermentation. So why did it take well into the medieval period (3,000 years?) for anyone to figure out distillation ? I have seen a museum artifact that is supposed to be a ceramic pot-still in the Jamestown exabits in Virginia.

[Bob Salomon]

Off topic but a relevant tangent:

Fermented beverages are at least as old as the pyramids. There are hieroglyphics describing bread making and beer brewing . . .both involving fermentation. So why did it take well into the medieval period (3,000 years?) for anyone to figure out distillation ? I have seen a museum artifact that is supposed to be a ceramic pot-still in the Jamestown exabits in Virginia.

“ April 10, 1849
Washington - Walter Hunt, of New York, NY, received patent #6,281 for the safety pin on April 10, 1849. Hunt's pin was made from one piece of wire, which was coiled into a spring at one end and a separate clasp and point at the other end, allowing the point of the wire to be forced by the spring into the clasp.”

But if you go to the Dëutches Romanish museum next to the Dom in Cologne you will see a Roman safety pin that is at least 2000 years old that appears identical to the pin described above.
You will also see a Roman carriage with leather leaf springs for a suspension.