# Why did it take so long to discover optical magnification?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-it-take-so-long-to-discover-optical-magnification/651877
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [March 3, 2013, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-it-take-so-long-to-discover-optical-magnification/651877 "2013-03-03T02:54:33Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@deltasigma](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/deltasigma)
#### Post date: [March 3, 2013, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-it-take-so-long-to-discover-optical-magnification/651877/1 "2013-03-03T02:54:33Z")
This HAS to be a stupid question, but it’s something that has always bugged me since I was a kid. If you spill a drop of water on a surface that has a texture or writing or artwork or any kind of detail that is observable, which btw should be pretty much any surface, you can see how the droplet makes everything seem larger.
OK, so if you try to think like an ancient and discriminate between things based on their superficial qualities, shouldn’t \*somebody \*at _some point_ have thought, hmmm, glass is clear just like a droplet of water. I wonder if I made a little blob of glass that was sort of the same shape if would do the same thing?
Doesn’t that seem like it should have the natural course of events? The Romans did have glass after all. It wasn’t great quality but it was good enough to see the effect. I just don’t get it.
I know that people often cite steam power as a similar example Hero of Alexandria’s [aeolipile](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeolipile) should have been the basis for the industrial revolution 1600 years ahead schedule but it wasn’t. It was just regarded as a novelty.
OK. Maybe that’s what happened here but I’ve never even heard of speculation in that direction. Does anyone have any insight into this? Thank you.
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### Author:  [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)
#### Post date: [March 3, 2013, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-it-take-so-long-to-discover-optical-magnification/651877/2 "2013-03-03T03:32:31Z")
The principle has been known since [antiquity](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnifying_glass).
> [@](#):
>
> The earliest evidence of “a magnifying device, a convex lens forming a magnified image” was Aristophanes’s “lens”, from 424 BC, a glass globe filled with water. (Seneca wrote that it could be used to read letters “no matter how small or dim”).
But clarity is difficult. Making clear glass without the imperfections and learning how to grind it to the proper curves took improvements both in manufacturing and the mathematics of curvature.
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### Author:  [@deltasigma](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/deltasigma)
#### Post date: [March 3, 2013, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-it-take-so-long-to-discover-optical-magnification/651877/3 "2013-03-03T03:45:24Z")
So was the principle actually used and it’s just not something one hears about? What I mean is that people have probably been getting presbyopic for as long as they’ve been living long enough, so there must have been a demand, certainly among the rich and literate for any sort of device, even a crappy blob of imperfect glass. Of course since everything was hand written, maybe the problem had to be very far advanced before it became an issue?
IDK, it just seems to me that with a steam engine you can rationalize it by saying, that’s what we have slaves for you silly thing. But eye sight just falls in a whole different category for me so it much harder for me to write it off so easily.
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### Author:  [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)
#### Post date: [March 3, 2013, 7:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-it-take-so-long-to-discover-optical-magnification/651877/4 "2013-03-03T07:36:16Z")
For the longest time, the immense majority of people never needed to read anything: a “scribe” wasn’t “a dude who got portrayed a lot in Egyptian paintings”, it was the job of people who could read and write. If you needed to send a letter, you went to someone who was able to write, told him what you wanted to say, and he wrote it down. If the recipient could not read, they’d have someone read it to them.
For someone who actually could and needed to read and write, it was cheaper to have an apprentice, subordinate or hireling do it than to find someone able to craft glasses of the appropriate curvature. That doesn’t mean glasses did not exist: I’ve seen references to a Cordobese doctor (Mohammed al-Gaffiqi, if I got the spelling right; the Spanish word for eyeglasses comes from his name) who invented sunglasses for the people on whom he’d performed cataracts surgery, and we’re talking late Middle Ages here; he also worked with a jeweller to make graduated glasses for his clients, but the graduation was “select clear gem, adjust carving until it works”. The sunglasses were actually a derivation of the other ones: the cataracts patients didn’t need something to adjust their eyesight as much as they needed something which would let them go out in the sun without the light hurting their eyes.
As Mr. **Marx** said, what wasn’t available in either a cost-effective way or with the precission we now take for granted was industrial glassmaking.
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### Author:  [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)
#### Post date: [March 3, 2013, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-it-take-so-long-to-discover-optical-magnification/651877/5 "2013-03-03T15:38:31Z")
> [@deltasigma](#):
>
> IDK, it just seems to me that with a steam engine you can rationalize it by saying, that’s what we have slaves for you silly thing. But eye sight just falls in a whole different category for me so it much harder for me to write it off so easily.
You seem to be asking about eyeglasses, not the general concept of magnification. That makes a huge difference.
Nobody really understood vision in the past. The fact that there are many types of less than perfect eyesight complicates things. Being near-sighted calls for a different type of lens than being far-sighted, and astigmatism and other problems lessen the impact of even good lenses. A convex drop of water will magnify, but you can’t translate that into something you use on your face. Putting a cloudy blob of glass or crystal in front of your eyes makes vision overall worse, not better, even if it magnifies. And as Nava says, it was a niche product at best. Most people had no need for glasses in an ordinary day.
Eyeglasses go back to the middle ages. They were independently invented in a variety of times and places. That does indicate that there was by then a more general need for them; but it also implies that despite the general need the technology simply wasn’t available earlier.
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### Author:  [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)
#### Post date: [March 3, 2013, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-it-take-so-long-to-discover-optical-magnification/651877/6 "2013-03-03T16:03:13Z")
As has been mentioned, there are some ancient lenses, and some have even been found in places where fine work was done. The problem is that you need a suitably clear material to make this out of – ancirent lenses were generally made of very clear rock crystal.
You’d think that glass would be the obvious material to make lenses out of, but making clear, clea, bubble- and striation-free glass isn’t trivial. A lot of ancient glass was simply unusable for making lenses out of.
One suggestion is that a lot of the round containers we’ve found from ancient Rome were actually used as maginifiers – a relatively thin0walled glass vessel would be error-free enough to not cause problems. If you then filled it with clear, clean water you’d have a magnifier much more transparent than one made of glass alone. and, as the quote **Exapno** gives shows, the use of water-filled glas vessels as magnifiers certainly was practiced in Rome.
One problem is that clear water often doesn’t stay clear. Things grow in it. So every now and then you have to wash them out.
As for correcting eyesight, I have made the suggestion in an optics journa;l that ancient people might simply have used pinhole glasses. Or, more likely, pinhole lorgnettes or monocles.
It doesn’t require very clear glass or rare clear rock crystal. It doesn’t require the grades of polishing grit of different size and the skill needed to perform optical grinding and polishing. All you need is a suitable hard material and an awl or drill (which the definitely had back then. People have been drilling holes in beads since before history). Drill a hole in a piece of leather, wood, bark, seashell, horn, or other suitable material and hold it in front of your eye. You’re restricted the rays that cause the blur. You’ve cut down on the amount of light, but you’re traded it for a clear image of a distant object (for a myope). I diwscovered this principle as a kid – I have to believe plenty of others have.
The device probably wouldn’t take the form of a pair of eyeglasses. I suspect it’d be in the form of “monocle” that could be held in place between the cheekbone and brow ridge, or as a “lorgnette”, with the pinhole in a holder on a stick that you could hold in front of one eye (the adbvantage of the “monocle” was that it kept your hands free).
Why haven’t these been discovered? They probably have – but how many people would associate a piece of wood/bone/shell/whatever with an eyeglass substitute? To most people – including archaeologists, it’s just a piece of stuff with a hole in it. I’ve pointed out several circula devices with central holes of the right size in museum collections that would serve the purpose.
The same idea is behind the Pinhole Glasses they sell on late night TV, or in the backs of magazines. They do work, but at the cost of illumination, and with some difficulty.
A Contributor to a backpacking magazine suggested using this idea if you’re a nearsighted outdoorsman (woman) who lost their glasses. Burgess Meredith could have read from his post-apocalyptic library if he thought of this!
The earliest example of pinhole “glasses” that look like glasses were reported from India, but I traced these back to central Asia, perhaps a thousand years ago.
An added advantage of using a pinhole “monocle”, by the way, is that it lets you hold so,mething much closer to the eye that you can normally focus. It thus effectively acts as a magnifier, letting you see finer detail than yo could see without it – and, again, you could get such a magnifier without having access to error-free glass, crystal, or polishing technology.
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### Author:  [@deltasigma](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/deltasigma)
#### Post date: [March 3, 2013, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-it-take-so-long-to-discover-optical-magnification/651877/7 "2013-03-03T16:42:21Z")
**Mssrs Mapcase & Meacham** (hmmm, suddenly feel like I ought to be writing out a check): Yes, I strongly suspect that there had to be any number of variations on this theme which would have fallen into 2 broad categories most likely (as has already been stated, but to highlight).
1. very simple, ad hoc devices that would have essentially been indistinguishable from other household goods and
2. still simple but more purpose built devices which used difficult to preserve components such as leather, sinew, etc. and without which are not easily identifiable.
The story of the antikythera can’t help but to come to mind when talking of such things don’t you think? Especially in light of the camera obscura with a lens idea - that was completely new to me. Although I guess it’s not really a camera obscura if it doesn’t invert the image, but I think you know what I’m trying to say (if not, it’s probably because I don’t either).
Anyway, even though you have 10,000 digs that tell you the most advanced tech was the iron sword, you still never know what you’ll find at the next one.
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### Author:  [@sailor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sailor)
#### Post date: [March 4, 2013, 9:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-it-take-so-long-to-discover-optical-magnification/651877/8 "2013-03-04T09:49:10Z")
> [@Nava](#):
>
> I’ve seen references to a Cordobese doctor (Mohammed al-Gaffiqi, if I got the spelling right; the Spanish word for eyeglasses comes from his name) who invented sunglasses for the people on whom he’d performed cataracts surgery, and we’re talking late Middle Ages here; he also worked with a jeweller to make graduated glasses for his clients, but the graduation was “select clear gem, adjust carving until it works”. The sunglasses were actually a derivation of the other ones: the cataracts patients didn’t need something to adjust their eyesight as much as they needed something which would let them go out in the sun without the light hurting their eyes.
I am reminded of a cartoon joke. The vignette shows a Roman servant serving his master some food.
- Servant: Today for dinner we have broiled potatoes, sir.
- Master: How can we have potatoes you fool? Messieur Parmentier will not be born for another 1500 years!
- Servant: But these, sir, are EARLY potatoes!
The etymology of the Spanish word “gafa” is well established. It first appears in Spanish in the 15th century, to denote a number of objects or tools with a hooked shape and derives from the earlier Catalan “gafa”, hook. (Related to the English sailing term “gaff”).
Early eyeglasses had no temple supports (pince-nez, etc.). When temple supports (hooks, “gafas”) were added the new type of eyeglasses were called “gafas” (hooks, temples) to differentiate them from earlier types. ([Metonymy - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metonymy)) This happened several centuries after al-Gaffiqi who, as far as Wikipedia describes, had nothing to do with sunglasses, cataract surgery, or anything of the sort.
I doubt eyeglasses with temple hooks can be found earlier than the very late 16th century so if Al-Gaffiqi used them in the 12th century they must have been of an early maturing variety.
Interestingly enough I could not find a Wikipedia entry on the guy who invented photography, a Mr. Kodak. I thought he might have done some work with lenses.
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### Author:  [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)
#### Post date: [March 4, 2013, 12:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-it-take-so-long-to-discover-optical-magnification/651877/9 "2013-03-04T12:19:23Z")
> [@sailor](#):
>
> I am reminded of a cartoon joke. The vignette shows a Roman servant serving his master some food.
>
> - Servant: Today for dinner we have broiled potatoes, sir.
> - Master: How can we have potatoes you fool? Messieur Parmentier will not be born for another 1500 years!
> - Servant: But these, sir, are EARLY potatoes!
> The etymology of the Spanish word “gafa” is well established. It first appears in Spanish in the 15th century, to denote a number of objects or tools with a hooked shape and derives from the earlier Catalan “gafa”, hook. (Related to the English sailing term “gaff”).
>
> Early eyeglasses had no temple supports (pince-nez, etc.). When temple supports (hooks, “gafas”) were added the new type of eyeglasses were called “gafas” (hooks, temples) to differentiate them from earlier types. ([Metonymy - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metonymy)) This happened several centuries after al-Gaffiqi who, as far as Wikipedia describes, had nothing to do with sunglasses, cataract surgery, or anything of the sort.
>
> I doubt eyeglasses with temple hooks can be found earlier than the very late 16th century so if Al-Gaffiqi used them in the 12th century they must have been of an early maturing variety.
> Interestingly enough I could not find a Wikipedia entry on the guy who invented photography, a Mr. Kodak. I thought he might have done some work with lenses.
You joke, of course, but the first photographs, bu Niepce and his immediate followers, used lebnses to project their images. The very first photographic techniques required a lot of light, and long exposures, so thelight- gathering ability of the lens was essential. i think it would’ve been hard going if the eareliest developers (hah?!) of photography had to make do with pinhole cameras.
“Kodak”, for the record, was a deliberately made-up name (like the much later “Exxon”) for George Eastman’s company.
> [@](#):
>
> Name
>
> The letter k was a favorite of Eastman’s; he is quoted as saying, “it seems a strong, incisive sort of letter.”[14] He and his mother devised the name Kodak with an Anagrams set. Eastman said that there were three principal concepts he used in creating the name: it should be short, easy to pronounce, and not resemble any other name or be associated with anything else.[15]
>
> It has also been suggested that Kodak originated from the suggestion of David Houston, a fellow photographic inventor who held the patents to several roll film camera concepts that he later sold to Eastman.[15] Houston, who started receiving patents in 1881, was said to have chosen Nodak as a nickname of his home state, North Dakota (NoDak).[16][17] This is contested by other historians, however, who cite that Kodak was trademarked prior to Eastman’s buying Houston’s patents.[18]
> **[Kodak](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kodak)**
>
> The Eastman Kodak Company, referred to simply as Kodak (/ˈkoʊdæk/), is an American public company that produces various products related to its historic basis in film photography. The company is headquartered in Rochester, New York, and is incorporated in New Jersey. It is best known for photographic film products, which it brought to a mass market for the first time.
> Kodak began as a partnership between George Eastman and Henry A. Strong to develop a film roll camera. After the release of the...
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### Author:  [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)
#### Post date: [March 4, 2013, 1:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-it-take-so-long-to-discover-optical-magnification/651877/10 "2013-03-04T13:04:25Z")
> [@deltasigma](#):
>
> I know that people often cite steam power as a similar example Hero of Alexandria’s [aeolipile](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeolipile) should have been the basis for the industrial revolution 1600 years ahead schedule but it wasn’t. It was just regarded as a novelty.
>
> OK. Maybe that’s what happened here but I’ve never even heard of speculation in that direction. Does anyone have any insight into this? Thank you.
Errr… No actually. The aeolipile is in no way the precursor to “steam power”. They did not have the metallurgy for one.
Many advances may seem obvious now, but were not at the time. To take a simple example it took 10000+ years to go from an axe to an axe with a handle. This is even more true when a known principles further use is contingent to new technology. Like lenses. And boilers.
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### Author:  [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)
#### Post date: [March 4, 2013, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-it-take-so-long-to-discover-optical-magnification/651877/11 "2013-03-04T13:55:30Z")
Even though lenses were pretty obviously used in the ancient world\*, the science behind them was not, which is pretty interesting in itself. What makes it interesting is that Claudius Ptolemy hi mself, the guy who made star charts, mapped the world, and did all sorts of other scientific things, actually performed a textbook-perfect example of an experiment to measure the angles of refraction for light entering and leaving a medium, complete with protractors to measure the angles of incidence and refraction. He did it for the interface between air and water, between air and glass, and between water and glass. His data still exists.
It’s evidently “processed” data, rather than “raw data”, but it has tio be pretty close to what he actually measured. And what he actually measured – contrary to what many modern commentators say – was pretty damned accurate. Except at extreme angles fro m the normal, his measurements are within 1 degree of what you’d measure today (using the known refractive index of water, and asuming a reasonable n = 1.5 for the glass).
A lot of modern texts say that "his results were pretty accurate for small angles, but were in error farther away. Which is demonstrably _wrong_ – his angles near normal incidence were his worst (except at very large angles). His results at internediate angles were his most correct. It’sd the ones at small angles that are off by the largest values, as anyone who seriously examined them would find (the appatrent depth of a coin in a pot of water(the classic experiment, described long before Ptolemy), for instance, is clearly incorrect if you figure it with his values.
The problem is that nobody examined them, apparently. Not even Ptolemy or his pupils, from what I can see. Ptolemy effectively derived a relationship between angle of incidence and angle of refraction that isn’t correct\*\*, but isn’t all that wrong. It COULD have been used as the basis for a prpgram of theoretical optics. But nobody ever used it for that.
Why, exactly, we don’t know. Ptolemy himself, having satisfied himself that such a relationship existed, seems to have just left it at that. His relationship, by the way, was in the form of a paraqbolic curve, not the familiar Snell’s Law relationship. It’s ironic, in a way, because Ptolemy also drew up the first Table of Sines that we know of. But he had no particular reason to think that sines were involved and never tried it out. Also, his table tabulated the sines as chord lengths, so the relationship would have been even less obvious.
But if someone had combined Ptolemy’s tablres with the observations of al-Shirazi or Theodoric of Freiburg on the light paths through a raindrop, we’d have had a complete theoretical explanation for the rainbow centuries before Descartes and Newton.
\*despite the efforts of some Classicists to deny any such existence. It’s interesting to see the lengths some people will go to in order to deny that what seems pretty clearly to be a lens is, in fact, something else altogether.
\*\*As I mention, his formula has the angle of refraction as a quadatic function of the angle of incidence. Please note that Snell’s Law doesn’t state that the angle of refraction is 1/n times the angle of incidence, except approximately near the normal. Ptolemy’s law works well AWAY from the normal. It’s lowest-order term doesn’t give you the linear approximation to Snell’s Law, and the full quadratic isn’t the Maclaurin expansion of Snell’s law, which doesn’t involve quadratic terms. Nevertheless, it’s a surprisingly good fit. Ptolemy’s instincts for the formula may not have been correct, but it was a good practical fit to the data – Ptolemy was a great experimentalist.
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### Author:  [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)
#### Post date: [March 4, 2013, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-it-take-so-long-to-discover-optical-magnification/651877/12 "2013-03-04T14:57:15Z")
> [@sailor](#):
>
> The etymology of the Spanish word “gafa” is well established. It first appears in Spanish in the 15th century, to denote a number of objects or tools with a hooked shape and derives from the earlier Catalan “gafa”, hook. (Related to the English sailing term “gaff”).
[RAE](http://lema.rae.es/drae/?val=gafas)does not give an etymology for _gafa_ or _gafas_, I checked. It’s the first time I or my Catalan-as-first-language mother hear of _gafa_ as a Catalan word for “hook”. The print CAT-ES dictionary in her house gives it as meaning _grapa_, that is, staple. Online bilingual dictionaries give it as meaning either _grapa_ (staple) or _patilla_ (they do not clarify wether this refers to the side bar of a pair of eyeglasses, or to a sideburn).
IOW: cite?
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### Author:  [@aldiboronti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aldiboronti)
#### Post date: [March 4, 2013, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-it-take-so-long-to-discover-optical-magnification/651877/13 "2013-03-04T15:11:53Z")
> [@Nava](#):
>
> If the recipient could not read, they’d have someone read it to them.
This reminds me of Swift’s gag in _A Modest Proposal_, “If you cannot read this then get someone to read it to you”.
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### Author:  [@Keeve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Keeve)
#### Post date: [March 4, 2013, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-it-take-so-long-to-discover-optical-magnification/651877/14 "2013-03-04T15:13:42Z")
> [@deltasigma](#):
>
> Why did it take so long to discover … …
That’s the odd thing about discoveries. Beforehand no one can figure them out. Afterwards, they’re just too obvious.
Exhibit A, your honor: Sir Isaac Newton and the [apple](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Newton#Apple_incident).
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### Author:  [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)
#### Post date: [March 4, 2013, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-it-take-so-long-to-discover-optical-magnification/651877/15 "2013-03-04T15:14:45Z")
ETA of my last post: it’s not that I don’t believe you, **sailor** (given the quality of my original source, I’m perfectly willing to believe they were wrong), it’s that it would be interesting to know your sources.
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### Author:  [@sailor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sailor)
#### Post date: [March 4, 2013, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-it-take-so-long-to-discover-optical-magnification/651877/16 "2013-03-04T16:28:34Z")
> [@Nava](#):
>
> ETA of my last post: it’s not that I don’t believe you, **sailor** (given the quality of my original source, I’m perfectly willing to believe they were wrong), it’s that it would be interesting to know your sources.
This page has a very complete explanation of the etymology of gafa in Spanish and the original and primary meaning of “hook”.
http://enciclopedia\_universal.esacademic.com/120731/gafa
Some related meanings: gancho, garfio, arpón, hierro, garra, uña, gafa, anzuelo
Gafa, S. XV, nombre de varios utensilios en forma de gancho. Del cat. gafa, “gancho, corchete”.
Diccionario Etimológico de la Lengua Castellana - Joan Corominas, Editorial Gredos 1980
In the middle ages the word appears in Catalan and in the closely related Provençal from where it passed to English:
gaff, “iron hook,” c.1300, gaffe, from Old French gaffe “boat hook”.
The word was later used for the gaff rig where it describes a spar with a fork rather than a hook.
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### Author:  [@sailor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sailor)
#### Post date: [March 4, 2013, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-it-take-so-long-to-discover-optical-magnification/651877/17 "2013-03-04T16:33:57Z")
> [@Keeve](#):
>
> That’s the odd thing about discoveries. Beforehand no one can figure them out. Afterwards, they’re just too obvious.
As any Spanish kid can tell you, Christopher Columbus was the first man to… make an egg stand on its end. This is what he is famous for in Spain. Everything else is minor compared to this feat.
> [@](#):
>
> Columbus was dining with some Spanish nobles when one of them said: “Sir Christopher, even if your lordship had not discovered the Indies, there would have been, here in Spain which is a country abundant with great men knowledgeable in cosmography and literature, one who would have started a similar adventure with the same result”.
>
> Columbus did not respond to these words but asked for a whole egg to be brought to him. He placed it on the table and said: “My lords, I bet with anyone of you that you are unable to make this egg stand on its end like I will do without any kind of help or aid.”
>
> They all tried without success and when the egg returned to Columbus, he tapped it gently on the table breaking it slightly and, with this, the egg stood on its end.
>
> All those present were confounded and understood what he meant: that once the feat has been done, anyone knows how to do it.
>
> History of the New World - Girolamo Benzoni - Venice 1565
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### Author:  [@deltasigma](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/deltasigma)
#### Post date: [March 4, 2013, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-it-take-so-long-to-discover-optical-magnification/651877/18 "2013-03-04T16:56:53Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#):
>
> Even though lenses were pretty obviously used . . . .
Very cool stuff. Thanks.
I knew if I posted this here I’d get everything that wasn’t common knowledge and the vast bulk of the arcane.
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### Author:  [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)
#### Post date: [March 4, 2013, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-it-take-so-long-to-discover-optical-magnification/651877/19 "2013-03-04T21:39:13Z")
**Nava, Sailor** , I learned a bunch of Spanish in the Canary Islands. I still out of habit say “gafas” and am met with blank looks from the people in NYC with whom I speak Spanish, who most often are from Puerto Rico, Mexico, and the Dominican Republic.
How wide is the use of “gafas,” generally?
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### Author:  [@leahcim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/leahcim)
#### Post date: [March 4, 2013, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-it-take-so-long-to-discover-optical-magnification/651877/20 "2013-03-04T22:11:43Z")
> [@sailor](#):
>
> As any Spanish kid can tell you, Christopher Columbus was the first man to… make an egg stand on its end. This is what he is famous for in Spain. Everything else is minor compared to this feat.
I heard this story related about Filippo Brunelleschi. In fact, wikipedia has a [cite](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brunelleschi) for the story.