May 25th - Planetarium
Eise Eisinga's planetarium was simply amazing. As mentioned before, this guy's wife must have absolutely hated him. But of course, it was totally worth it. I found out that Eise's planetarium belongs to a smaller catagory of devices called "orrerys", which are essentially mechanical models of celestial systems (side note: summer DIY project). I like the fact that the construction of the orrery was for a specific purpose, and that purpose was to prove a bunch of silly people wrong.
If Eisinga really wanted to disprove the apocalypse prediction, he could have perhaps drawn the people a picture, or have shown them a mathematical equation. But instead he decided to do the more eclectic thing, which was to turn his house into a giant space clock.
I really loved this as well! The upper room holding all of the wheels and gears was very impressive and the accuracy of the clock is amazing. I have heard that this is one of the oldest ones that are still working today!
ReplyDeleteI loved the fact that everything was still in working order. It is also impressive that he made detailed documentation regarding how to adjust it for special situations so that it would always be accurate.
ReplyDelete