Study of Bright Points and Curves

Abstract

THE study of “brilliant points and lines” is an application of the principles of geometrical optics which has not hitherto received the amount of consideration which it deserves, when account is taken of (1) the simplicity of the principles involved, (2) the elegance of the results obtained, and (3) the ease with which the subject can be studied experimentally. The writer of the present note has a dim recollection of having worked out in his undergraduate days a tripos rider in which it was required to find the equation of the bright curves seen when a source of light was reflected from a metal surface covered with regular scratches or corrugations of a given form, but beyond this he does not remember having seen any other bookwork or examples on the same subject. A general investigation of the theory of brilliant points is now given by Mr. W. H. Roever in the Annals of Mathematics for April, pp. 113—128.