The idea of using a rotating liquid to create a perfect paraboloid was originally proposed by Sir Isaac Newton but the very stringent requirements, in particular on the speed of rotation and leveling, prevented any serious attempt to build a prototype before the second part of the nineteenth century.
Modern LMT research began with Ermanno Borra[?]'s paper (Borra 1982). Over several years, the technology was developed successfully to produce a 1.5m diffraction-limited[?] LMT. Then, a collaboration began between Paul Hickson[?] at UBC, and Borra. Hickson designed the 3m-class LMs, and built several 3m-class LMs for UBC, NASA, and UCLA. Hickson and collaborators are now building the 6m LZT located at the UBC Liquid-Mirror Observatory[?].
Structure of Liquid Mirrors
The technology of LMs include three required components:
- a dish containing a liquid reflecting metal
- an air bearing on which the LM sits
- a drive system.
Details of these components are long, and go beyond the level required in this general encyclopedia.
--More to come, or if you like to learn more now, see links below--
External Links
http://www.dawn.com/weekly/science/science5.htm - All about LMTs
http://www.astro.ubc.ca/lmt/ - Headquarters for the LMT
http://www.astro.ubc.ca/ - Headquarters of Astronomy at UBC
wikipedia.org dumped 2003-03-17 with terodump