Hans Lippershey

79
Hans Lippershey bigraphy, stories - Inventors

Hans Lippershey : biography

1570 – 1619

Hans Lippershey (1570 – September 1619), also known as Johann Lippershey or Lipperhey, was a German-Dutch lensmaker commonly associated with the invention of the telescope, although it is unclear if he was the first to build one.

Biography

Lippershey was born in Wesel, in western Germany, in 1570. He settled in Middelburg, the capital of the province of Zeeland in the Netherlands, in 1594, married the same year and became a citizen of Zeeland in 1602. During that time he became a master lens grinder and spectacle maker and established a shop. He remained in Middelburg until his death, in September 1619.

Invention of the telescope

Hans Lippershey is generally credited with the earliest recorded design for an optical telescope (a refracting telescope) in 1608, although it is unclear if he invented it. His work with optical devices grew out of his work as a spectacle maker, an industry that had started in Venice and Florence in the thirteenth century, and later expanded to the Netherlands and Germany. Lippershey may have made this discovery on his own although there are many stories as to how he came by his invention.