Almost a half-century after is completion, the 200-inch Palomar telescope remains an unparalleled combination of vast scale and microscope detail. As huge as the Pantheon of Rome and as heavy as the Statue of Liberty, this magnificent instrument is so precisely built that its seventeen-foot mirror was hand-polished to a tolerance of 2/1,000,000 of an inch. The telescope's construction drove some to the brink of madness, made others fearful that mortals might glimpse heaven, and transfixed an entire nation. Ronald Florence weaves into his account of the creation of "the perfect machine" a stirring chronicle of the birth of Big Science and a poignant rendering of an America mired in the depression yet reaching for the stars. "A superb history by a super writer and historian."-- Allan Sandage "Over to you, Pulitzer Prize Committee."-- Arthur C. Clarke Almost a half-century after is completion, the 200-inch Palomar telescope remains an unparalleled combination of vast scale and microscope detail. As huge as the Pantheon of Rome and as heavy as the Statue of Liberty, this magnificent instrument is so precisely built that its seventeen-foot mirror was hand-polished to a tolerance of 2/1,000,000 of an inch. The telescope's construction drove some to the brink of madness, made others fearful that mortals might glimpse heaven, and transfixed an entire nation. Ronald Florence weaves into his account of the creation of "the perfect machine" a stirring chronicle of the birth of Big Science and a poignant rendering of an America mired in the depression yet reaching for the stars. Ronald Florence was educated at Berkeley and Harvard. The author of five previous books, he lives with his wife and son on the Connecticut shore, where they raise Cotswold sheep. The Perfect Machine Building the Palomar Telescope By Florence, Ronald Perennial Copyright © 2004 Ronald Florence All right reserved. ISBN: 0060926708 April 1921 The two men met on the platform of the Southern Pacific depot in Los Angeles. In their wool suits and stiff collars, they might have been mistaken for commercial travelers starting out on a week's run to peddle their wares--at least until they bought tickets straight through to Washington, D.C. Transcontinental travel was enough of a novelty to turn heads in 1921. The area around the depot looked like the backgrounds of the Mack Sennett Keystone Cops comedies, which were filmed nearby. Elegant homes abutted vacant lots. Trolley cars ran down streets lined with palm and eucalyptus trees, past incongruously empty pastures. Signs of construction were everywhere. Civic boosters, buoyed by preliminary reports of the 1920 census, were already bragging that Los Angeles had passed San Francisco in population to become the fastest-growing city in the United States. At the depot the men exchanged pleasantries and agreed to share a compartment, but neither said much to the other, letting the flurry of boarding passengers, conductors checking tickets, baggage handlers, and porters fill the silence until the train left. Outside the Pullman window they watched cart after cart being wheeled down the platform to the dining car, laden with food, linen, and menus. Prohibition had eliminated the wine list and the prospect of a bar car, but even in the infancy of transcontinental travel, the railroads knew that leisurely meals served by porters in starched white jackets were one way to fill the long hours of the journey. The trolley cars had a nine-story terminal at Sixth and Main, but railroad passengers didn't count for much in the City of the Angels. Eager to match the splendor of the great eastern stations, like the grand concourse of New York's Penn Station, where departing passengers on the famed Limited trains were greeted by a stationmaster in tails, top hat, and white gloves, Los Angeles had long campaigned to get the Southern Pacific, Union Pacific, and Atchison lines to build a grand Union Station as part of a grandiose civic center plan. But by the 1920s Southern California already seemed hell-bent on the automobile. The ambitious plans of the tire, gasoline, and auto companies were open secrets, and the railroads, unsure of the future of passenger traffic, resisted municipal entreaties. Eastbound passengers in Los Angeles had to settle for a cluttered platform in a dilapidated depot, where the train pulled away with no more ceremony than an everyday local, and the engineer had to ride his whistle to clear the way over a series of annoying grade crossings along busy Alameda Street. Automobiles had already wrought havoc in Los Angeles. The train didn't pick up speed until it emerged from the built-up downtown area. By then the travelers could see billboards advertising canary farms, artificial pools for fishing, stands selling fried rabbit, dogs at stud, grass-shack eating huts, psychic mediums, vacant-lot circuses, storefront evangelicals, bicycles for rent, and frogs for sale. California