The humble wooden contraption with which Galileo made the astronomical discoveries that would transform science Photo: Florence, Istituto e Museo di Storia della Scienza From The Telegraph:
Today it would hardly pass muster as a child's plaything, but the telescope Galileo used 400 years ago this week to peer into the heavens overturned the foundations of knowledge, changing our perception of the universe and our place in it.
Galileo's "optick tube" had a meagre 9x magnification and was not even conceived for astronomy.
Indeed, when the gadget was first demonstrated, Venetian senators were so smitten with its military potential that they doubled Galileo's salary and awarded him a life tenure in the city-state's most prestigious university.
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