Optics Highlights

An Anecdotal History of Optics from Aristophanes to Zernike

I. ANCIENT HISTORY: Aristophanes, Democ ritus, Aristotle, Archimedes, Seneca, Nero, Ptolemy, Alhazan.

II. SPECTACLES: Bacon, Keppler, Franklin, Airy, Fick.

III. THE TELESCOPE: Lippershey, Galileo, Newton, Gregory, Cassegrain, Hall, Dolland, Schmidt.

IV. THE MICROSCOPE: Jansen, Hooke, Huygens, van Leeuwenhoek, Lister, Gauss, Abbe.

V. RAY OPTICS , CORPUSCLES AND WAVELETS: Snell, Descartes, Fermat, Hamilton, Bradley, Euler.

 VI. WAVE OPTICS: Young, Fresnel, Arago, Laplace, Fourier, Poisson, Malus, Brewster, Foucault, Fizeau, Doppler.

VII. OPTICS, ELECTROMAGNETIC WAVES AND QUANTA: Maxwell, Hertz, Luneburg, Fraunhofer, Planck, Einstein, Bohr.

VIII. SOME ROOTS OF MODERN OPTICAL SYSTEMS: Chappe, Niepce, Wheatstone, Baird, Gabor, Zernike.

Pages Maintained by L.S. Taylor, Electrical Engineering Dept., University of Maryland.

Construction supported by the Life Members Committee of the Institute Of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc.

taylor@eng.umd.edu

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