Lens Design Fundamentals, 2nd Edition

Preface to the First Edition

Rudolf Kingslake

This book can be regarded as an extension and modernization of Conrady's 50-year-old treatise, Applied Optics and Optical Design, Part I of which was published in 1929.* This was the first practical text to be written in English for serious students of lens design, and it received a worldwide welcome.

It is obvious, of course, that in these days of rapid progress any scientific book written before 1929 is likely to be out of date in 1977. In the early years of this century all lens calculations were performed slowly and laboriously by means of logarithms, the tracing of one ray through one surface taking at least five minutes. Conrady, therefore, spent much time and thought on the development of ways ...