When we think of a telescopic ladder, we think of the telescopic movement of the stiles: each section extends and retracts into the next, much like the tubes of a telescope, but the origins of telescopes, and the word ‘telescope’ is very far removed from this concept.

The first telescopes appeared in the early 1600s and are credited to Hans Lippershey. They consisted of a convex lens and concave eyepiece which refracted light between these lenses to magnify far away objects. The word itself is of Greek origin: tele meaning far and skopein, meaning to look or see, hence ‘telescope’ or “far seeing”. The famous physicist Gallileo Gallilei happened upon Lippershey’s invention in 1609 and set about improving it, for he had ideas about its application in astronomical physics. It was his telescope design that was first given the name ‘telescope’. The word has very little to do with a telescopic ladder, apart from the fact that a telescopic ladder allows you to see slightly further away by being at a greater height.

Johannes Kepler, suggested further improvements and refracting telescopes with two convex lenses were developed in the 1610s. Isaac Newton developed the reflecting telescope (using mirrors as well as lenses) in the 1660s. Further developments in telescope technology happened over the years, including radio telescopes, infra-red telescopes and gamma ray telescopes.

The need for extra length between the receiving lens at the far end of the telescope, and the eyepiece, led to long telescope tubes, but these were not easily portable, so the tubes were designed to fit inside one another, and then be pulled out to create the desired length. It is this design that gave rise to anything that utilises the idea being referred to as ‘telescopic’, but in the truest sense of the word, they are not. So although it shares the name, a telescopic ladder does not use lenses or mirrors, nor does it truly allow the user to see very far away objects.

Now I’m afraid we don’t currently stock telescopes! But we do have plenty of ladders, telescopic included, come over to our main online ladder store at www.midlandladders.com for top quality ladders at the best possible prices or click the link above to go straight to our full range of telescopic ladders.