Abstract
ON his retirement last July, Mr. T. Smith completed a period of forty-one years service at the National Physical Laboratory, where he was in charge first of the Optics Section of the Physics Department and later of the newly created Light Division. The long series of investigations on geometrical optics which have established Mr. Smith as a leading authority in the subject were begun a few years after he entered the Laboratory with a paper to the Optical Society entitled "Practical Optical Calculations". This was the key for much of his later work. His outstanding contributions have been to the theory of algebraic, as distinct from trigonometric, methods of optical design, and in the development of methods of computation based on the use of calculating machines. A feature of many of his later papers has been the masterly application of matrix methods to optical problems. As is so often the ease when alternatives to old-established procedures are offered, the adoption of Mr. Smith's design methods in the industry has been slow ; but there are now signs that their value is being appreciated. Mr. Smith's work was recognized by his election to the Royal Society in 1932, and he has held the office of president both of the earlier Optical Society and the Physical Society. The younger workers in his subject recall with appreciation the care he always took that they should have the fullest opportunity to develop their views however unorthodox or immature. It is appropriate that the council of the Physical Society should have invited Mr. Smith to deliver the sixteenth Thomas Young Oration ; this he has agreed to do in June 1949.
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The National Physical Laboratory, Light Division : Mr. T. Smith, F.R.S. Nature 162, 987 (1948). https://doi.org/10.1038/162987a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/162987a0