So, I am doing a little research on the history of aspherics. I learned one thing. The earliest written reference I found so far is a US patent by Abbe, US 697,959, filed in 1899. Along the way, I came on the name of Fritz Wachendorf. A new name for me, and interesting unto itself, but, even more interesting for the following, unrelated Google search experience.
Let’s say you are interested in finding out the most significant books specifically oriented to optical design. Here is what to do:
- Go to www.scholar.google
- Type “F. Wachendorf” with the quotation marks
At least at the moment, where I am, the second item should look like:
[CITATION] Bestimmung der Bildfehler 5. Ordnung in zentrierten optischen …
F Wachendorf - Optik, 1949
Cited by 7 - Related articles
Now, click on Related articles and you should see, near the top,
[CITATION] Geometrical Optics
JG Baker - Fundamental formulas of physics, 1955 - Prentice-Hall
Related articles - All 2 versions
Now, click on Related articles again, and you now have pretty much the top 100 books in geometrical optics.
I recognize the list, because I spent over 10 years, in the pre-Internet period, collecting old books in optics and this list parallels what was my collection. That collection has since been donated to the College of Optical Sciences at the University of Arizona. However, in a few months, the optics books in that collection that are dated before 1923 will be posted to the ORA website as they were recently scanned by Kirtas books using funding from ORA. This will begin an exciting opportunity to get your own e-book, soft-cover, or, even hardcover version of the classics in optics, including, for example Coddington, from 1828 and Airy from 1850. There will be more on this, soon. Try out the search series – the book list is really great. And, there are a few articles that are interesting if you have missed them. The one below for example.
[CITATION] WHO? DISCOVERED CODDINGTON'S Equations?
R Kingslake - Optics and Photonics News, 1994 - opticsinfobase.org
In these formulae, s and t represent the distances from the point of incidence of the traced ray
to the sagittal and tangential object or image, measured along the traced principal ray, and r
is the radius of curvature of the refracting surface.
And, there appears to be a new book on photographic lenses out (don’t buy them all, I’m ordering mine tomorrow). Looks good, especially if you happen to read German.
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