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The Optical Revolution: Made in Holland

14 September 2026 3 min. reading time What Did the Flemish and Dutch Ever Do for Us?

Look up at the night sky, or down into a drop of water, and you’re seeing the world the way the Dutch taught us to see it. In the early seventeenth century, refinements to lenses and advances in mathematics let people see further into the distance and deeper into the impossibly small than ever before. Much of it happened in the Dutch Republic, at the height of what’s still commonly, if increasingly contentiously, called its Gouden Eeuw, and the consequences rippled far beyond its borders.

Christopher Joby

Christopher Joby

Visiting Professor at Adam Mickiewicz University and Associate Professor at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies

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