There is a telescope perched on an extinct volcano in Hawaii which cost £24 million. It is the result of a series of incredible engineering feats, gathering light to its core with a huge reflector made of tessellated smaller mirrors which are cooled, shifted by thousandths of millimetres and polished by ionic sandblasters (these are so precise and gentle that they can autograph a hair)
Richard Hammond's Engineering Connections saw the presenter cooing over this testament to human ingenuity and demonstrating some of the technologies that went into it by setting fire to a dinghy and sensing one doctored tennis ball in five hundred. In hushed tones he concluded that this telescope was producing images from the very edge of the Universe, giving us insights into its formation between 13.61 and 13.85 billion years ago.
If I take my glasses off I can barely distinguish a friend at arm's length, but I can focus upon objects only an inch away from the tip of my nose. If it weren't for the invention of lenses there would be no big picture for me: no leaves on faraway trees, no stars, no birds. So, thank you science. But how could anyone could be so shortsighted to spend £24 million to see something so insignificant to humanity? Who cares when/how/if the Universe exploded from nothingness when that amount of money could restore the sight of 1.3 million people?
Sources: ORBIS, BBC iPlayer
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£24 million? Pocket-money to some! But then the Government whines about the 'huge' cost of the NHS while apparently painlessly coming up with umpteen billions for naughty bankers. Best not to think about it if one is prone to high blood pressure!
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