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Ernst Abbe and the Foundation of Scientific Microscopes

Barry R. Masters

Last year marked the 100th anniversary of the death of Ernst Abbe, who passed away on January 14, 1906—just a few days short of his 65th birthday. In addition to his groundbreaking optical work, which includes his diffraction theory for image formation and the formulation of the sine condition and Abbe number, he was also a noted entrepreneur, astronomer and social reformer. more>>

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Intrinsic Coherence: A New Concept in Polarization and Coherence Theory

Philippe Réfrégier and Antoine Roueff

The concept of interference has always been critical to our grasp of the nature of the light—from the time of Christiaan Huygens and Isaac Newton to the groundbreaking work of Emil Wolf and Roy Glauber on coherence theory. Building on the latter contributions, these authors analyze intrinsic coherence properties of partially polarized light. more>>

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Welcome to the Wonderful World of 3D: Anaglyph Experiments. Third article of a four-part series.

Keigo Iizuka

The first two installments in this four-part series explored the history and principles of 3D imaging and provided instructions for creating 3D images. This article is devoted to anaglyph experiments, which use complementary colors to create 3D illusions. more>>

Did You Know?

Patricia Daukantas

The 60th anniversary of Land's instant photography demonstration. more>>

Microstructure Technique “Blackens” Metals

Patricia Daukantas

A new laserablation technique alters the surfaces of metals such as platinum and tungsten, so that the metals absorb nearly 100 percent of the light that falls on them. more>>

New Imaging Technique Reveals Body's Inner Surfaces

Patricia Daukantas

Researchers at the Wellman Center for Photomedicine and Massachusetts General Hospital devised a new approach called optical frequency-domain imaging, which acquires images much faster than OCT. more>>

Optics Innovations

MagiQ Technologies: from Hilbert Space to Marketplace

Joseph E. Gortych

MagiQ Technologies Inc. has taken on a rather audacious task for itself: to be the leader in commercializing quantum information processing technology, which includes quantum cryptography systems and quantum computers. more>>

Policy Matters

New Leadership, New Hope for Science Policy

Angela Stark

What will be the fallout of last November’s Congressional elections for science in general and optics in particular? more>>

The History of OSA

Reminiscences

John N. Howard

In 1973, OSA president-elect Dow Smith wrote to several previous OSA presidents and medalists, asking them to recount memories from OSA meetings. This article captures the responses of past presidents George Harrison (1945-1946) and Stanley Ballard (1963), and the 1973 C.E.K. Mees medalist Erik Ingelstam. more>>