The Principles of Physical Optics
eBook - ePub

The Principles of Physical Optics

An Historical and Philosophical Treatment

  1. 352 pages
  2. English
  3. ePUB (mobile friendly)
  4. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub

The Principles of Physical Optics

An Historical and Philosophical Treatment

About this book

In this classic exposition, Ernst Mach presents a detailed account of the experimental and theoretical evolution of our understanding of light phenomena and apparatus. Beginning with the philosophic and physiological speculation arising from early experiments on light and color perception, he proceeds to a thorough examination of the history of diopterics, including the roles of Huyghens, Galileo, Descartes, the Bernoullis, Kepler, and other scientists.
Full descriptions of hundreds of experiments and detailed treatments of theory cover Newton's work with color and dispersion, his concept of the periodicity of light, the development of the theory of interference, and the perfection and elaboration of these ideas up until the mid-nineteenth century. A survey of polarization ranges from Bartholinus's paper on double refracting Iceland spar through work by Malus, Brewster, Biot, Arago, to the definitive work of Young and Fresnel. The final third of the book considers the mathematical representation of the properties of light; refinements in the theory of linear, circular, and elliptic polarization; and advanced diffraction experiments, including the theory of the diffraction grating.
Students, teachers, and historians of science as well as physicists, engineers, designers of optical systems, and all readers interested in the development and perfection of scientific research will find this volume a stimulating and informative resource.

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Yes, you can access The Principles of Physical Optics by Ernst Mach in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Physical Sciences & Physics. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Information

Publisher
Dover Publications
Year
2013
Print ISBN
9780486495590
eBook ISBN
9780486173474
Topic
Physical Sciences
Subtopic
Physics
Index
Physics

Table of contents

  1. Title Page
  2. Copyright Page
  3. TRANSLATORS’ NOTE
  4. Dedication
  5. PREFACE
  6. Table of Contents
  7. Table of Figures
  8. CHAPTER I - INTRODUCTION
  9. CHAPTER II - THE RECTILINEAR PROPAGATION OF LIGHT
  10. CHAPTER III - REFLECTION AND REFRACTION
  11. CHAPTER IV - THE EARLY KNOWLEDGE OF VISION
  12. CHAPTER V - THE DEVELOPMENT OF DIOPTRICS
  13. CHAPTER VI - THE COMPOSITION OF LIGHT
  14. CHAPTER VII - THE FURTHER DEVELOPMENT OF THE THEORY OF COLOUR AND DISPERSION
  15. CHAPTER VIII - PERIODICITY
  16. CHAPTER IX - THE FURTHER DEVELOPMENT OF THE THEORY OF INTERFERENCE
  17. CHAPTER X - POLARIZATION
  18. CHAPTER XI - THE MATHEMATICAL REPRESENTATION OF THE PROPERTIES OF LIGHT
  19. CHAPTER XII - THE FURTHER DEVELOPMENT OF THE KNOWLEDGE OF POLARIZATION
  20. CHAPTER XIII - THE EXPLANATION OF RECTILINEAR RAYS, REFLECTION, AND REFRACTION BY THE PROPAGATION OF WAVES
  21. CHAPTER XIV - A FURTHER EXPLANATION OF THE BEHAVIOUR OF LIGHT BY MEANS OF PERIODICITY DIFFRACTION
  22. APPENDIX
  23. NAME INDEX
  24. SUBJECT INDEX
  25. DOVER PHOENIX EDITIONS - A series of hardcover reprints of major works in mathematics, science and engineering