Manual of Advanced Optics. Practical Exercises in Light: being a Laboratory Course for Schools of Science and Colleges Elementary Ophthalmic Optics Geometrical Optics: an Elementary Treatise upon the Theory, and its Practical Application to the more Exact Measurements of Optical Properties Das Stereoskop Seine anwendung in den technischen Wissenschaften Über Entstehung und Konstruktion Stereoskopischer Bilder

Abstract

MR. MANN'S book contains an account of the three months' experimental course on optics pursued by the senior students at the University of Chicago. The name Chicago, uttered on this side of the Atlantic, suggests many different things to different persons; to physicists it cannot but bring to mind the name of Prof. Michelson, to whom we are indebted for some of the most valuable and ingenious optical investigations that the last century brought forth. An experimental course, developed according to the ideas of Prof. Michelson, could scarcely be other than original and stimulating; the course before us, in addition, is systematically developed, the descriptions are clear and concise, and the illustrations, though few, are well calculated to serve the purpose for which they were intended. Each chapter commences with a brief theoretical investigation, wherein the aim is to concentrate attention on the physical, as distinguished from the purely mathematical, aspect of the subject; following this is a description of the experiments, and the manipulation of the necessary apparatus. Room is left for the student to develop a certain amount of originality in his methods, and thus avoid reduction to the state of a mere mechanical copyist. Numerous references are given to original memoirs, which should prove very useful to advanced students. Besides the experiments usually found in books on optics, descriptions are given of the method of determining the j*e-solving power of telescopes, spectroscopes, and gratings. It is interesting to find Prof. Michelson's classic researches on the resolution of spectral lines by means of the interferometer included in a course for students. In fine, no one on glancing through this book would hesitate to endorse the concluding words of Prof. Michelson's introductory note:—

Manual of Advanced Optics.

By C. Riborg Mann, Assistant Professor of Physics in the University of Chicago. Pp. 196. (Chicago: Scott, Forseman and Co., 1902.)

Practical Exercises in Light: being a Laboratory Course for Schools of Science and Colleges.

By R. S. Clay Pp. vi + 187. (London: Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 1902.) Price 2s. 6d.

Elementary Ophthalmic Optics.

By Freeland Fergus, Surgeon to the Glasgow Eye Infirmary. Pp. viii + 107. (London: Blackie and Son, 1903.) Price 3s. 6d. net.

Geometrical Optics: an Elementary Treatise upon the Theory, and its Practical Application to the more Exact Measurements of Optical Properties.

By Thomas H. Blakesley Pp. viii + 120. (London: Whittaker and Co., 1903.) Price 2s. 6d.

Das Stereoskop. Seine anwendung in den technischen Wissenschaften. Über Entstehung und Konstruktion Stereoskopischer Bilder.

Von Wilhelm Manchot, Architekt und Professor am Städel'schen Kunstinstitut zu Frankfurt a.M. Pp. vi (3 blank) + 68. (Leipzig: Veit and Co., 1903.)