ATM The Glass Giant

["Bell, Andrew" <AMB2@pge.com>]

Here's a history of technology piece that may be of interest to many, for
various reasons; it's a 50th anniversary write-up of the Palomar telescope,
as published a couple of years ago by the San Diego Historical Society: 

	http://edweb.sdsu.edu/edweb_folder/SDHS/journal/98fall/palomar.htm
	http://edweb.sdsu.edu/edweb_folder/SDHS/journal/98fall/photos.htm

The article was written by Ronald Florence, who wrote an entire book on this
subject that was published about ten years ago, called "The Perfect Machine"
-- the article looks like an abbreviated version of the book, there's also a
wonderful set of pictures under the second link.

Many subjects that are frequently discussed on this list are touched upon in
this article [e.g., fused quartz versus pyrex - they tried both; shipping
glass; and figuring techniques].  There's also a great discussion towards
the end about the original design specifications versus what was actually
delivered, and how some of those differences were artfully papered over by
the project team.

-- Andrew Bell