What’s in a name? More to the point, what’s in a name for optical terms? Specifically, the words we use every day as lens designers. Have you ever stopped to wonder where they came from? It would be a shame to ignore the reasons behind the words and terms we use every day, because the […]
Optics
The Eras of Optics: A Tour Through the People Who Built the Field
I like “eras.” These are named chunks of time. I live in Japan, and we use the Common Era (CE) notation alongside the Japanese calendar — 令和 (Reiwa) 2019–present, 平成 (Heisei) 1989–2019, 昭和 (Showa) 1926–1989, 大正 (Taisho)1912–1926, and 明治 (Meiji) 1868–1912 for modern Japan. Each had its distinct flavor — we still sometimes refer to […]