The Optics of Life

The Optics of Life PDF Author: Sonke Johnsen
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 140084066X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 357

Get Book

Book Description
Optics--a field of physics focusing on the study of light--is also central to many areas of biology, including vision, ecology, botany, animal behavior, neurobiology, and molecular biology. The Optics of Life introduces the fundamentals of optics to biologists and nonphysicists, giving them the tools they need to successfully incorporate optical measurements and principles into their research. Sönke Johnsen starts with the basics, describing the properties of light and the units and geometry of measurement. He then explores how light is created and propagates and how it interacts with matter, covering topics such as absorption, scattering, fluorescence, and polarization. Johnsen also provides a tutorial on how to measure light as well as an informative discussion of quantum mechanics. The Optics of Life features a host of examples drawn from nature and everyday life, and several appendixes that offer further practical guidance for researchers. This concise book uses a minimum of equations and jargon, explaining the basic physics of light in a succinct and lively manner. It is the essential primer for working biologists and for anyone seeking an accessible introduction to optics. Some images inside the book are unavailable due to digital copyright restrictions.

The Optics of Life

The Optics of Life PDF Author: Sonke Johnsen
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 140084066X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 357

Get Book

Book Description
Optics--a field of physics focusing on the study of light--is also central to many areas of biology, including vision, ecology, botany, animal behavior, neurobiology, and molecular biology. The Optics of Life introduces the fundamentals of optics to biologists and nonphysicists, giving them the tools they need to successfully incorporate optical measurements and principles into their research. Sönke Johnsen starts with the basics, describing the properties of light and the units and geometry of measurement. He then explores how light is created and propagates and how it interacts with matter, covering topics such as absorption, scattering, fluorescence, and polarization. Johnsen also provides a tutorial on how to measure light as well as an informative discussion of quantum mechanics. The Optics of Life features a host of examples drawn from nature and everyday life, and several appendixes that offer further practical guidance for researchers. This concise book uses a minimum of equations and jargon, explaining the basic physics of light in a succinct and lively manner. It is the essential primer for working biologists and for anyone seeking an accessible introduction to optics. Some images inside the book are unavailable due to digital copyright restrictions.

The Optics of Life

The Optics of Life PDF Author: Sönke Johnsen
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691139911
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 356

Get Book

Book Description
Optics--a field of physics focusing on the study of light--is also central to many areas of biology, including vision, ecology, botany, animal behavior, neurobiology, and molecular biology. The Optics of Life introduces the fundamentals of optics to biologists and nonphysicists, giving them the tools they need to successfully incorporate optical measurements and principles into their research. Sönke Johnsen starts with the basics, describing the properties of light and the units and geometry of measurement. He then explores how light is created and propagates and how it interacts with matter, covering topics such as absorption, scattering, fluorescence, and polarization. Johnsen also provides a tutorial on how to measure light as well as an informative discussion of quantum mechanics. The Optics of Life features a host of examples drawn from nature and everyday life, and several appendixes that offer further practical guidance for researchers. This concise book uses a minimum of equations and jargon, explaining the basic physics of light in a succinct and lively manner. It is the essential primer for working biologists and for anyone seeking an accessible introduction to optics.

Rudolf Kingslake

Rudolf Kingslake PDF Author: Martin L. Scott
Publisher: University of Rochester Press
ISBN: 9781580463973
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 139

Get Book

Book Description
If a single lens can form an image, why does our camera have several elements? A curious child, Rudolf Kingslake inquired of his father the answer to this question nearly one hundred years ago, foreshadowing his remarkable career in optics and his future influence on a newly formed branch of science. Born in 1903, at the beginning of the era of technological progress, Kinglake graduated from the Imperial College in London and was offered a position on the original faculty of what came to be known as the renowned University of Rochester Institute of Optics. Martin Scott details the life of the beloved professor who maintained simultaneous careers in academia and industry as the director of Optical Design for Kodak. Filled with personal reminisces and anecdotes from friends, family and colleagues, Rudolf Kingslake: A Life in Optics/> encompasses the breadth and vivacity of the pioneer and his astounding life. Martin L. Scott is former director of scientific imaging at the Eastman Kodak Company, and built the Kingslake Archives online register for the Rush Rhees Library's Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, University of Rochester.

Animal Eyes

Animal Eyes PDF Author: Michael F. Land
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191625361
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 288

Get Book

Book Description
Animal Eyes provides a comparative account of all known types of eye in the animal kingdom, outlining their structure and function with an emphasis on the nature of the optical systems and the physical principles involved in image formation. A universal theme throughout the book is the evolution and taxonomic distribution of each type of eye, and the roles of different eye types in the behaviour and ecology of the animals that possess them. In comparing the specific capabilities of eyes, it considers the factors that lead to good resolution of detail and the ability to function under a wide range of light conditions. This new edition is fully updated throughout, incorporating more than a decade of new discoveries and research.

Visual Ecology

Visual Ecology PDF Author: Thomas W. Cronin
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691151849
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 427

Get Book

Book Description
A comprehensive treatment of visual ecology Visual ecology is the study of how animals use visual systems to meet their ecological needs, how these systems have evolved, and how they are specialized for particular visual tasks. Visual Ecology provides the first up-to-date synthesis of the field to appear in more than three decades. Featuring some 225 illustrations, including more than 140 in color, spread throughout the text, this comprehensive and accessible book begins by discussing the basic properties of light and the optical environment. It then looks at how photoreceptors intercept light and convert it to usable biological signals, how the pigments and cells of vision vary among animals, and how the properties of these components affect a given receptor's sensitivity to light. The book goes on to examine how eyes and photoreceptors become specialized for an array of visual tasks, such as navigation, evading prey, mate choice, and communication. A timely and much-needed resource for students and researchers alike, Visual Ecology also includes a glossary and a wealth of examples drawn from the full diversity of visual systems. The most up-to-date overview of visual ecology available Features some 225 illustrations, including more than 140 in color, spread throughout the text Guides readers from the basic physics of light to the role of visual systems in animal behavior Includes a glossary and a wealth of real-world examples

Seeing and Being Seen in the Later Medieval World

Seeing and Being Seen in the Later Medieval World PDF Author: Dallas G. Denery II
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 113944381X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 219

Get Book

Book Description
During the later Middle Ages people became increasingly obsessed with vision, visual analogies and the possibility of visual error. In this book Dallas Denery addresses the question of what medieval men and women thought it meant to see themselves and others in relation to the world and to God. Exploring the writings of Roger Bacon, Duns Scotus, Peter Aureol and Nicholas of Autrecourt in light of an assortment of popular religious guides for preachers, confessors and penitents, including Peter of Limoges' Treatise on the Moral Eye, he illustrates how the question preoccupied medieval men and women on both an intellectual and practical level. This book offers a unique interdisciplinary examination of the interplay between religious life, perspectivist optics and theology. Denery presents significant new insights into the medieval psyche and conception of the self, ensuring that this book will appeal to historians of medieval science and those of medieval religious life and theology.

Dissipative Solitons: From Optics to Biology and Medicine

Dissipative Solitons: From Optics to Biology and Medicine PDF Author: Nail Akhmediev
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 3540782168
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 484

Get Book

Book Description
The dissipative soliton concept is a fundamental extension of the concept of solitons in conservative and integrable systems. It includes ideas from three major sources, namely standard soliton theory developed since the 1960s; nonlinear dynamics theory; and Prigogine's ideas of systems far from equilibrium. These three sources also correspond to the three component parts of this novel paradigm. This book explains the above principles in detail and gives the reader various examples.

How Things Work

How Things Work PDF Author: Louis A. Bloomfield
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1119013844
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 512

Get Book

Book Description
How Things Work provides an accessible introduction to physics for the non-science student. Like the previous editions it employs everyday objects, with which students are familiar, in case studies to explain the most essential physics concepts of day-to-day life. Lou Bloomfield takes seemingly highly complex devices and strips away the complexity to show how at their heart are simple physics ideas. Once these concepts are understood, they can be used to understand the behavior of many devices encountered in everyday life. The sixth edition uses the power of WileyPLUS Learning Space with Orion to give students the opportunity to actively practice the physics concepts presented in this edition. This text is an unbound, three hole punched version. Access to WileyPLUS sold separately.

Measuring Shadows

Measuring Shadows PDF Author: Raz Chen-Morris
Publisher: Penn State Press
ISBN: 0271077336
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 263

Get Book

Book Description
In Measuring Shadows, Raz Chen-Morris demonstrates that a close study of Kepler’s Optics is essential to understanding his astronomical work and his scientific epistemology. He explores Kepler’s radical break from scientific and epistemological traditions and shows how the seventeenth-century astronomer posited new ways to view scientific truth and knowledge. Chen-Morris reveals how Kepler’s ideas about the formation of images on the retina and the geometrics of the camera obscura, as well as his astronomical observations, advanced the argument that physical reality could only be described through artificially produced shadows, reflections, and refractions. Breaking from medieval and Renaissance traditions that insisted upon direct sensory perception, Kepler advocated for instruments as mediators between the eye and physical reality, and for mathematical language to describe motion. It was only through this kind of knowledge, he argued, that observation could produce certainty about the heavens. Not only was this conception of visibility crucial to advancing the early modern understanding of vision and the retina, but it affected how people during that period approached and understood the world around them.

Seeing the Light

Seeing the Light PDF Author: David R. Falk
Publisher: Echo Point Books & Media
ISBN: 9781626541092
Category : Photography
Languages : en
Pages : 494

Get Book

Book Description
Seeing the Light is the most accessible and comprehensive study of optics and light on the market. Each chapter is a self-contained lesson, making it easy to learn about specific optical concepts. Diagrams, photos, and illustrations help bring concepts to life, and sections at the ends of chapters explore the more advanced aspects of each topic.