[ATM] how many errors can you spot in this passage on Foucault?

Bob May rmay at nethere.com
Thu Dec 27 19:42:52 JST 2007


Thanks for the kudo!
On number one, I didn't know who had actually invented the
silvering method so I let that one slide.
On number two, I didn't really notice that he was discussing the
rear or second surface sivering of the glass but rather just was
discussing the general rear silvering that was already being done
for reflecting mirrors for haberdashery and so forth.  You could
assume that he really did mean for astro mirrors if you wish to
take it that way.
Coudef, of course, actually invented the Foucault test as we do
it today.  Foucault pretty much knew that the parabola was the
shape desired as others did who were doing speculum mirrors but
he really couldn't figure out how to actually test the mirrors on
the ground to a full parabola so he did the best he could devise
which was a near parabola by the testing of the ellipsoid shape
and then fionally finished them off with a distant objectto that
last little bit to a parabola.  He got very close with his method
and many amateur mirrors would have passed his test as he did it.
It took Couder to realize that the mirror shape could be tested
in zonees and thus modified Foucault's method back to the ROC
test that we do today and did the labourious calculations to get
the approximate parabola shape as we do today.  Thus, we honbor
Foucault with the KE test apparatus and Couder with the mask and
data reduction.
Bob May
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