Optical Instruments

Abstract

THERE was a time when one man was able to learn the whole of science: for example, we are told that Moses learnt all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and so late as the sixteenth century John Baptista Porta, a Neopolitan youth of eighteen years of age, attempted to set out all the then known science in his “Magise Naturalis”, a book which became very famous and was translated into many languages. Even a hundred years ago it was possible for such a man as Thomas Young to master the greater part of human knowledge. But during the last century the growth of knowledge has been so great that it is no longer possible, even in a single field, for any man to keep abreast of the advancing tide of discovery, still less is it possible to have more than a general acquaintance with other branches of science.

An Introduction to Applied Optics. Vol. 2: Theory and Construction of Instruments.

By Prof. L. C. Martin. (The Specialist's Series.) Pp. ix + 289. (London: Sir Isaac Pitman and Sons, Ltd., 1932.) 21s. net.