who was the first to discover the mirror ?
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The history of mirrors.\nThe history of mirrors dates back to ancient times when mankind first saw reflections in a pond or river and considered it magic. Long befor man was able to make mirrors out of glass, mirrors made of metal were used. Sheets of metal, mostley copper, was flattend and polished until it could be used as a mirror.\n\nThe mirror of the ancient Greeks and Romans was a disk of metal with a highly polished face, sometimes with a design on the back, and usually with a handle.\n\nThat mirrors were used in ancient times, can also be found in the bible:\n\nExodus 38:8\n"And he made the laver of brass, and the foot of it of brass, of the lookingglasses of the women assembling, which assembled at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation."\n\n\n\nMirrors in ancient Egypt\n \nThese polished bronze mirrors were used to reflect the face. They were made of molten bronze or copper. They were round, oval, square and most of the time they had a handle. If any rust developed it was easily polished new. Later in ancient Rome mirrors were made of tin, silver and even gold. \n\nEven in present time mirrors made out of metal are being used. Just think of the laughing mirrors you can find on fairs and carnivals and traffic safety mirrors \n\nAlso small glass mirrors were used. Mirrors made of natural glass 'obsidian' with a surface as shiny as possible. Pieces of this glass sometimes were embeded in walls.\n\n\n\nThe Romans\nMuch later, after the discovery of glass making, the Romans made mirrors out of glass by finishing them with a metall layer.\n\nAt excavations in Germany a mirror made out of glass of 7 x 4 cm, that was covered on one side with a layer of gold that was sealed with a red shellac. In Roman graves dating from the second and third century there were also found pieces of glass covered with lead.\n\n\n\nThe Middle Ages\n»mercury mirrors \nAfter the discovery of glassblowing in the 14th century, mirrors were made out of glass bulbs. The glassblower blew a glass bulb that while still hot, was filled with a mixture of metalls such as lead, antimony and tin, through the blowingpipe. After cooling the bulbs, they were cut in pieces, thus forming little hollow (convex) mirrors. Although these mirrors did not have a perfect reflection, people did not mind at all. The mirrors available at that time, were made out of metall which wasn't flat and had an even worse reflection.\n\nAt the end of the Middle Ages this type of producing mirrors with liquid metalls, did evolve into the production of mercury mirrors. The metal used was in fact an amalgam of tin and mercury. A method of backing a plate of flat glass with a thin sheet of reflecting metal came into widespread production in Venice during the 16th century.\n\nIn 1507 the Danzola del Gallo brothers from Murano near Venice asked the Council of Ten:\n\n"...the privilege for 25 years to manufacture clear and almost perfect mirrors out of crystal, unknown to the whole world except to a factory in Germany which in alliance with a Flamish factory held the monopolie in producing this type of mirrorglass....".\n\nTherefor we can conclude that in Germany and in Belgium (Flandria) this method was already being used. The exact ingredients and procedure were kept secret for a long time, these mirrors therefor were very expensive. In 1683 the legacy of the French minister Colbert held a Venetian mirror of 115 x 65 cm, mounted in a silver frame. The mirror was sold for almost 3 times the price of a painting of Rubens, that was also a part of this legacy!\n\nThe reflecting layer of mercury on mirrors, which were made throughout a period of 400 years, existed out of 75% of tin and approximatly 25% mercury. The name 'tin mirror' therefor would be more appropriate. Technicaly spoken, it was neither one of them. The metal used was in fact an amalgam of tin and mercury.\n\nProducing this kind of mirrors was complicated and took a lot of time. Th
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Carl Wilhelm Scheele discovered it in 1772, and Joseph Priestly found it in 1774 (independently).  Scheele was a Swede, Priestly was an Englishman.
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Alfred Francois Donné, a french physician and pioneer of optics.  He was the first to identify and describe the platelet, a key part of our blood.  He also discovered trichomoniasis vaginalis.
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The invention of the microscope is variously accredited to Zacharias Janssen, a Dutch spectaclemaker, c.1590, and to Galileo, who announced his invention in 1610.
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einstein. he just sat in his chair and thought of theories. he did experiments in his mind
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Leonardo da Vinci.  Not a scientist, per se, but he did explore scientific thought and was a remarkable engineer and inventor.  Fascinating guy.
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carl sagan said it first
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The first webcam was invented by two Cambridge scientists.
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Copernicus - his theory was that the sun is the centre of the unoiverse and that all other heavenly bodies revolve around it
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stated the first version of the Law of conservation of mass, recognized and named oxygen (1778) as well as hydrogen, disproved the phlogiston theory, introduced the Metric system, invented the first periodic table including 33 elements, and helped to reform chemical nomenclature, not to mention where Mrs. Lavoisier's erogenous zones were.
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It was Thales of Miletus, 635 BC - 543 BC who first described it. Ben Franklin missed this discover by over 2000 years.
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Well, rainbows (which are a spectrum) have been known for ages and ages. That crystals will produce rainbows has also been known for ages. Newton was the first person to seriously investigate the properties of light using prisms. The discovery of spectral *lines* was later, but I'm not sure by whom. But it was mostly done by the late 1800's. As a point of interest, Helium was first discovered through the spectrum of sunlight and only later found on earth.
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Nikola Tesla.\n\nBecause he thought it wouldn't cause lights to flicker for anyone.
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it was his reflection
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Any material which may have a reflective surface may be said to be a mirror when it does -- be that a silver-backed glass mirror in the Versailles Salon de Glaces, a sheet of gold leaf on the ceiling of Catherine's boudoir in the Winter Palace, the polished bronze shield which allowed Perseus to see not Medusa but her reflection, an ancient Egyptian obsidian obelisk, the Reflecting Pool on the National Mall, the cornea of the human eye...
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talk about the ways mirrors have been used in literature, like Through the Looking-Glass for starters.
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The enlightenment occured before America was discovered.