A course in luminescence measurements and analyses for radiation dosimetry Luminescence the eerie glow of light emitted by many physical and biological substances is familiar to us all. The bright speck of a firefly the luminous glow from seawater in the evening the glow of a watch dial in the dark all are examples of luminescence phenomena that are familiar to most of us. Familiarity and understanding are not synonymous however. Indeed an understanding of the various luminescence phenomena has a very long genesis and over the centuries there have been several ...divers kinds of Degrees of Explication ... . Luminescence has had and continues to have practical uses in both every day and in more esoteric applications. Computer screens electronic indicators lighting lasers and many many other examples are indications that the field of luminescence is very broad and potentially very useful. One such field of use is in the detection and measurement of radiation a field generally known as dosimetry or the act of measuring the dose of radiation absorbed by an object. The amount of radiation absorbed by an object and the subsequent amount of luminescence emitted from it is the basis of the use of luminescence in dosimetry. The connection between radiation and luminescence was made many years ago and in fact those of us active in the field of luminescence dosimetry can take pride in the fact that the study of luminescence can be traced to the beginning of the modern scientific method. Although it would be surprising if ancient Islamic or perhaps Chinese scholars had not already noted the phenomenon in one of its many guises it can nevertheless be argued that the first modern description of luminescence stems from the work of Robert Boyle in mid seventeenth century England published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. Boyle considered to be the father of chemistry as well as being a physicist an inventor a philosopher and a theologian gives an evocative description of (what we now term) luminescence emitted from a remarkable piece of diamond loaned to him by a friend John Clayton (Boyle 1664). The word luminescence was not used by Boyle who referred to it as the glow from the stone. In a later publication concerning luminescence from a liquid he uses the wonderfully suggestive term self shining to describe the phenomenon (Boyle 1680)