The Telescope

(This is adopted from a speech I delivered a few weeks ago.)

Just a little over a week ago, we were all lucky enough to experience a historical event that affects all of humanity. The most intriguing thing about this event, however, is not that it is universal in effect. Rather, it is where it occurred. It did not take place in the United States, as misguided nationalists would want it to be, nor did it take place in Japan, China, England, Germany, or any of the other economic powerhouses. In fact, it did not even happen on Earth. Instead, it happened in the vastness of space. The milestone in question is Voyager 1’s exiting of the solar system and entrance into the history books as the first man-made object to leave the Sun’s influence. It is a great achievement for science, and a testament to the vast size and wonder of space, all of which would be impossible to observe, let alone visit, if not for one object: the telescope. 

I have a Bushnell in real life, but this is close enough.

This is a telescope, not at all dissimilar from the one originally used by Galileo to observe the moons of Jupiter along with the mighty Hubble telescope that takes snapshots of distant galaxies. The telescope is a key instrument of science, and learning about its significance will expand your appreciation for astronomy and astrophysics, along with the necessity of space exploration, along with the unique culture it represents: the culture of science and reason. First, I will give you a brief history of the telescope and the different forms it takes, along with their different uses. Second, I will explain why I identify with the culture the telescope represents, namely, the scientific community. 

The telescope, while typically pictured as a tube with lenses used to look at the moon, in reality is defined as an instrument used to measure electromagnetic radiation, in most cases light. This leaves a broad space open for many different specialized types of telescopes, categorized by the radiation they detect, observe, their configuration, and location. However, before we discuss the different types of telescopes, it is essential to know where telescopes come from. The lenses typically used in telescopes were invented very early in the Seventeenth century in the Netherlands for use in eye glasses, but it wasn’t until the year 1609 that those lenses were pointed skywards. Galileo Galilee, an Italian physicist, invented the telescope by carefully grinding a set of lenses, one concave, and one convex, and placing them both in a tube. The combination of the two types of lenses provided a magnifying effect when viewed with the concave lens closest to the observer’s eye, and Galileo used this magnifying effect with excellent results, viewing the surface of the moon along with a ribbon of diffused light, a spiral arm of the Milky Way galaxy, in the sky. After the invention of calculus by Sir Isaac Newton later in the century, telescopes could be fashioned with greater precision and magnification, and used to find the distance of stars from Earth. However, there was a limit of what the telescopes could observe due to Earth’s atmosphere, as discovered in the early Twentieth century with the advent of some of the largest ground-based telescopes ever built. It was not until 1990 when the European Space Agency and NASA were able to launch the famous Hubble Space Telescope that astronomers and astrophysicists could get the clearest pictures possible of distant objects. The Hubble Space Telescope, along with the discussion about the weaknesses of ground telescopes brings us neatly to the different types of telescopes used today. The main dichotomy between telescope types is one of location; that is, the split between space and ground based telescopes. Space-based telescopes provide the clearest images available, but are expensive to launch and maintain, and are more vulnerable than ground-based telescopes due to their remote location. Ground-based telescopes, on the other hand, are subject to atmospheric interference, but are more reliable than space-based telescopes and more accessible to amateur astronomers than space-based telescopes, for obvious reasons. Ground-based telescopes come in three flavors: refractor telescopes, which use lenses to magnify objects like Galileo’s telescope, reflector telescopes, like the example here, which use a series of mirrors to magnify objects and are the type used by optical observatories on the ground, and radio telescopes, which use massive dishes to collect radio waves and other invisible forms of electromagnetic radiation to paint a more detailed picture of the celestial body. Space-based telescopes are once again dichotomized, this time into reflector telescopes, like the Hubble Telescope, which use a very similar setup to ground-based versions, and radio telescopes, which are essentially ground bases radio telescopes compressed into a much smaller package. Space agencies such as NASA use a combination of the two types of telescopes to create a multilayered view of the night sky, giving astrophysicists the advantage of multiple data types all from the same object. Now that I have given you a brief history of the telescope, I will now explain why I identify with the scientific community that the telescope represents. From an early age, I have always been fascinated with science, and especially space, stemming from my naturally skeptic, evidence-based nature and desire to make a difference. Science is the ultimate form of skepticism and critical thought, and it only made sense for me to go into a field where I can both question everything and explore the majesty of space. Science has always been my explanation for everything. Its demand for the truth, and not merely a convenient one, is something that no philosophy or religion can even begin to rival. Science is humanity’s greatest chance at survival beyond our lifetimes, let alone beyond the planet. It is based on the simplest of things: logic. The scientific method is merely an extension of logic, subjecting hypotheses to merciless peer review in order to pull out any gaps in logic and to ensure excellence and trustworthiness before it is even remotely considered as being true. It is based on hard evidence, repeatability, and the ability to be falsified. As Neil DeGrasse Tyson so famously said, “The good thing about science is it’s true whether you believe it or not,” because evidence is everything. Without science, we would have none of the conveniences or needs we treasure so much, nor would we even have the universe itself. Science is everything, and absolutely everything that exists is science. We are the product of 13.7 billion years of science in action, specifically 10 billion years of cosmology, 3.7 billion years of evolution, and 10,000 years of sociology, physics, and engineering. Science is pro-freedom, pro-innovation, and pro-democracy, everything nationalistic Americans worship, but more so, it is pro-humanity. Science is the future of our race, and I want a part in it. Specifically, I want a part of it in a big way. A really big way. Not from your house to the nearest 7-11 big. Billions of light years big, as in space, the final frontier, in our voyages on the starship Earth, the massive organic starship Earth. I want to study space, in the form of astrophysics, the study of the movements of astronomical objects, and my telescope will be my gateway, my Enterprise if you will, into the vastness and possibilities of the very place that is really our home: the cosmos. It will require a long journey, absolutely, from the California Institute of Technology to the University of Tokyo, and, if we get our act together, into space, but the result will be worth it. I want to educate every one of you on the benefits of science, the majesty of space, but most of all, I want us to change. I want us to put aside the arms of war, the petty arguments, and the pointless nationalism that we are all guilty of, and move onto a brighter, and much much bigger future, one where we not only exist on this planet, but others like it throughout the galaxy. What I want is for humanity to progress into something much greater, and continue seeking the answers to the questions we always are asking: where did we come from, why are we here, and where are we going. This is what science is about: answering questions, seeking the truth, through the only way possible: observation, whether it is from a meager telescope or a massive spaceship, and evidence. That, quite simply, is the reason I identify with the scientific community, or rather, the culture it represents: the culture of humanity.

I sincerely hope every one of you learned why the telescope is important to science, and more importantly why science is important to humanity, along with the scientists that use it. After reviewing the history of the telescope, I told you why it is important to me, and why I love the culture it represents, and what that community will do for all of us. So, please, the next time you see someone stargazing with a telescope, don’t call them a nerd or a nuisance. After all, they are looking at the future of humanity. Thank you.