|  Telescopes and Ancient Astronomy Telescope and related images below lead to the rest of the stories on ancient astronomy:  "Telescope" is derived from the ancient Greek word tēle, meaning “far off,” plus skopein, meaning “to look.” The primary definition of a telescope, according to the 1927 Encyclopedic Edition of The Winston Simplified Dictionary, is: “An optical instrument for viewing distant objects, especially heavenly bodies: called refracting if bringing the rays to a focus by a lens, reflecting if by a concave mirror.” However, this authority’s editors: Yale University Dr. H. S. Canby, the editor of The Saturday Review of Literature; Dr. T. K. Brown Jr., formerly of Haverford College, and Dr. W. D. Lewis, formerly the Superintendent of Public Instruction for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania made no mention of who invented the telescope, perhaps because of the previous controversy surrounding the subject. . . . Telescopes, lenses, airplanes, automobiles, and other ancient technology were all described by the Medieval historian Roger Bacon. The “Admirable Doctor,” the greatest natural philosopher of the Middle Ages, was born in Somersetshire, England, about 1214, and he was educated at Oxford and Paris. By chance, he joined the Franciscan (mendicant) Order, for which he had no qualifications, and his ecclesiastical situation fiercely conflicted with his real scientific mindset. He was an avid proponent of observation and experiment as the basis of deduction, and never ceased urging the study of original sources and texts as the basis for gaining any sound natural knowledge. . . .
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