The intended precision for the primary mirror shape was accurate to within what fraction of a human hair's width?
Answer
1/20th the width
The required manufacturing tolerance for the Hubble primary mirror was exceptionally stringent, demanding an accuracy within approximately 1/20th the width of a human hair. This illustrates the incredibly high standards required for primary optical surfaces in such instruments. When the actual manufacturing error was found to be 2.2 micrometers, which was correlated to be about 1/50th the thickness of a human hair, it meant the actual error was actually larger than the required tolerance by a factor of two regarding the width measure cited, underscoring how easily minute deviations could lead to massive performance failures when working at this nanoscale level.
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