The Universe of Discourse

Disco ball technology

A little while ago I wrote:

I think a disco ball would not be out of place at Versailles.

I just remembered that good mirror technology is perhaps too recent for disco balls to have been at Versailles. Hmmm. Early mirrors were made of polished metal or even stone, clearly unsuitable. Back-silvering of glass wasn't invented until the mid-19th century.

Still, a disco ball is a very forgiving application of mirrors. For a looking-glass you want a large, smooth, flat mirror with no color distortion. For a disco ball you don't need any of those things. Large sheets of flat glass were unavailable before the invention of float glass at the end of the 19th century, but for a disco ball you don't need plate glass, just little shards, leftovers even.

The 17th century could produce mirrors by gluing metal foil to the back of a piece of glass, so I wonder why they didn't. They wouldn't have been able to spotlight it, but they certainly could have hung it under an orbiculum. Was there a technological limitation, or did nobody happen to think of it?

[ Addendum: I think the lack of good spotlighting is the problem here. ]

[ Addendum: Apparently, nobody but me has ever used the word “orbiculum”. I don't know how I started using it, but it seems that the correct word for what I meant is oculus. ]

[Other articles in category /tech] permanent link