Principles of Optics
60th Anniversary Edition

The 60th anniversary edition of this classic and unrivalled optics reference work includes a special foreword by Sir Peter Knight.

Max Born (Author), Emil Wolf (Author)

9781108477437, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 19 December 2019

992 pages, 393 b/w illus. 30 tables
25.5 x 18.2 x 3.9 cm, 1.71 kg

'The strength of the book is the mathematical lucidity derived from Born's extremely rigorous mathematical upbringing together with the then up-to-date ideas from Wolf … it has supported and influenced the four Nobel laureates whose plaudits cover the rear dust cover, and Sir Peter Knight (once editor of these reviews), who has written an extensive and enlightening introduction. It is still a hugely relevant resource which new researchers should be using as diligently as were their predecessors of nearly two generations ago.' R. S. Shorter, Contemporary Physics

Principles of Optics is one of the most highly cited and most influential physics books ever published, and one of the classic science books of the twentieth century. To celebrate the 60th anniversary of this remarkable book's first publication, the seventh expanded edition has been reprinted with a special foreword by Sir Peter Knight. The seventh edition was the first thorough revision and expansion of this definitive text. Amongst the material introduced in the seventh edition is a section on CAT scans, a chapter on scattering from inhomogeneous media, including an account of the principles of diffraction tomography, an account of scattering from periodic potentials, and a section on the so-called Rayleigh–Sommerfield diffraction theory. This expansive and timeless book continues to be invaluable to advanced undergraduates, graduate students and researchers working in all areas of optics.

Historical introduction
1. Basic properties of the electromagnetic field
2. Electromagnetic potentials and polarization
3. Foundations of geometrical optics
4. Geometrical theory of optical imaging
5. Geometrical theory of aberrations
6. Image-forming instruments
7. Elements of the theory of interference and interferometers
8. Elements of the theory of diffraction
9. The diffraction theory of aberrations
10. Interference and diffraction with partially coherent light
11. Rigorous diffraction theory
12. Diffraction of light by ultrasonic waves
13. Scattering from inhomogeneous media
14. Optics of metals
15. Optics of crystals
16. Appendices
Author index
Subject index.

Subject Areas: Applied optics [TTB], Technology, engineering, agriculture [T], Optical physics [PHJ], Physics [PH]