Devices of Wonder: From the World in a Box to Images on a Screen

Innumerable philosophers and scientists (not to mention artists, poets, playwrights and novelists) down the ages have considered how we view our world, and what is the world we are viewing. Technological means of perceiving and recording the world, from the macrocosm of the heavens to the microcosm of the sub‐atomic particle, have proliferated throughout history and have shown man often at his most inventive. If we wonder at the virtual electronic images produced today, in comparative terms we have reason to wonder equally at the myriad inventions of the past which have performed (or have tried to perform) a similar...