Abstract
THERE is a rapid increase in the number of elementary treatises on light intended to serve the needs of the student of a good pass or first year honours grade. Prof. Monk's book is of this standard. It provides a very well balanced course of geometrical and physical optics in which the emphasis is, naturally, on the physical side. The fundamentals of the subject are carefully developed and expounded, and, though the treatmentis relatively elementary, intensity-distribution problems receive due consideration, and there are concise but comprehensive chapters on spectra, light and material media, the effects of magnetic and electric fields, and the eye and colour vision. The geometrical part contains a useful discussion of the cardinal points of an optical system developed on classical lines, apertures, aberrations, photometry and instruments. About seventy pages are devoted to a series of twenty-three laboratory experiments, ranging from the focal lengths of simple lenses to the optical constants of metals.
Light:
Principles and Experiments. By Prof. George S. Monk. Pp. xi + 477. (New York and London: McGraw-Hill Book Co., Inc., 1937.) 30s.
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F., A. Light. Nature 141, 669 (1938). https://doi.org/10.1038/141669c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/141669c0