Physical Optics

By Robert W. Wood

First edition, first impression. New York: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 1905.

Octavo. Colour frontispiece illustrating spectra, with text figures and plates, Plate IV (Cornu’s spiral) folding. Original green ribbed cloth, spine lettered and ruled in gilt, boards ruled in blind.

A very good copy, with a couple of scratches to the upper board, some pushing to the spine ends and bumping to the corners. The hinge is cracked at the half-title, though the binding remains firm. Browning and spotting affect a few of the opening and final leaves; the contents are otherwise clean throughout. Previous owner’s name and date (“F. Castle 3/5/06”) at the head of the title page, with a “Presentation Copy” blindstamp to the lower corner.

The first edition of WOOD’s influential textbook of physical optics, published while he was Professor of Experimental Physics at Johns Hopkins University, where he had succeeded Henry Rowland in 1901. In the preface, Wood explains that he began the book when Preston’s Theory of Light was practically the only advanced English text suitable for general class use. Its distinctive emphasis lay on the experimental side, drawing frequently upon experiments with which he had been associated, while its theoretical treatment closely followed Drude’s electromagnetic approach. Revised editions appeared in 1911 and 1934, and Wood was working on a fourth at his death.

Among the work’s readers was the schoolboy Edwin H. Land, the future co-founder of Polaroid. Recalling his youthful reading, Land credited Wood’s account of polarised light with convincing him that “the world needed a synthetic polarizer”. His subsequent development of inexpensive polarising sheets brought the control of glare into commercial applications. In 1934, Eastman Kodak contracted with Land–Wheelwright Laboratories to purchase polarising material for photographic filters; in 1935, the laboratories entered an agreement with the American Optical Company to produce polarised sunglasses.