The man who gave us “photographs”

On September 9, 1839, English polymath John Herschel took a glass photograph of a 40-foot reflecting telescope. This photograph, which incidentally is a word coined by him, is considered as the earliest remaining photograph on glass plate. A.S.Ganesh gives a snapshot (another word that Herschel first used in the context of photography) of Herschel’s life and his many contributions to science…