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Optics

3.97  ·  Rating details ·  773 ratings  ·  13 reviews

Accurate, authoritative and comprehensive, Optics, Fourth Edition has been revised to provide readers with the most up-to-date coverage of optics. The market leader for over a decade, this book provides a balance of theory and instrumentation, while also including the necessary classical background. The writing style is lively and accessible.

Hardcover, Fourth Edition, 680 pages
Published August 12th 2001 by Addison-Wesley (first published June 1st 1974)
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Average rating 3.97  · 
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 ·  773 ratings  ·  13 reviews


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Mati Roy
Jan 25, 2014 rated it liked it
Shelves: partly-read
2.5/5 so far

He takes a lot of space/time to explain some things; especially the easy things, not so much the more difficult ones where, instead, we're told "it can be shown that", but it's not explained how or which book/paper/website could tell us how.

He doesn't use the most popular sign conventions and doesn't justify why. The book contains some mistakes.

Some important tables could have been put on the covers. I'd prefer if the chapters would be separated in sections: theory, examples,
...more
Ivan Idris
I had a course on Optics in my first year in University with this book. The book has lots of examples and is very wordy. I suspect the author hoped to make it a reference as well as a study book. The number of photos in Optics is unusually high for a Physics book. I wouldnt mind if some of those were colour photos, but then again it would have made the book less affordable. Topics include:

Mathematics of Waves
Light
Geometrical Optics
Polarization
Interference
Diffraction

Overall, I would say
...more
Brett Williams
Jan 30, 2015 rated it it was amazing
Keep at it, Eugene!

To be vitally human there are a few authors one must read - Shakespeare, Plato, Rousseau, Alan Bloom, and Eugene Hecht. With only limited exaggeration - notable among man's achievements is Hecht's new 4th edition of Optics. The first edition was the central (and only) text assigned in junior year optics for physics majors at many universities. As a near adolescent I was pleased by expert writing and well delivered humor in those far off years of college life.

The wonders of
...more
T Dodson
Oct 02, 2014 rated it really liked it
A great book with a lot of information on the behavior of light. A good balance of derivations and figures - and dense with text (but not too dense). I didn't give it 5 stars, because this seems more like an introductory text, and I feel like these topics go a lot deeper.
Dheerajkc Kc
Sep 21, 2012 rated it really liked it
really gud...........got the answers which were earlier unknown to me......has got logic behind every explaination
Spencer
Jan 12, 2008 rated it liked it
The explanations are mostly crystal-clear, crafted with great care. Lots of words and diagrams, not too much math, but enough math to facilitate useful calculations.
Quang-Nguyen Vo-Huynh
Mar 13, 2020 rated it it was amazing
Shelves: textbooks
This is the review for the 5th Global Edition of the book.

In summary, this is one of the best books about Optics that you can find among the sea of reference books about the subject. The book provides in-depth and easy-to-digest information, which does include not just the mathematical notions, about the subject of ray (geometrical) optics, wave optics, beam optics, and last but not least, Fourier optics. I can hardly recommend this book enough.


On the other hand, this book would be even better
...more
Joe Cole
May 05, 2017 rated it it was amazing  ·  review of another edition
Good textbook if you take optics course. There are multiple example problems that are well discussed in each chapter on the main topics.
Konstantinos
Nov 13, 2017 rated it it was amazing
Clear, on point.
Srivatsava Vuppala
Jul 27, 2019 rated it really liked it
GUD
Adam Lantos
Nov 08, 2015 rated it really liked it
A really good book! It touches on everything that has to do with optics! My only problem with it is that it treats some subjects only on a qualitative level, but that is a problem to someone who-like me- wants to know absolutely everything behind a phenomenon. One example for this is the case of evanescence waves and tunneling. This book just discusses evanescence waves but does not touch on tunneling(which is a shame, really). But again, I have only found one book(which is Howard Georgi's book ...more
Rayan Enaya
Jun 07, 2013 rated it it was amazing
Very useful book for photonics engineers and physicists . I consider it the holly book of optics. It covers many subjects in a very comprehendible way . Like for instance the subject of optical sensors is thoroughly covered in one chapter. I really love this book
Mike
May 20, 2012 rated it liked it
A nice thick optics textbook. It crushes bugs really well too.
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