Talk:History of optics

message: * Initial stub was created from another Wikipedia article titled Pre-experimental science in order to point the reader in the right direction from Gedankenexperiment. Cioxx 16:55, 6 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Untitled

message: OK, the AfD discussion resulted in no consensus (except that this article is about Ptolemy's theory, not Plato's) and we're back at what to do with it.  The three viable options seem to be:
# Rename as History of optics and revise extensively (suggested by Beland, Maestlin, and SteveMcCluskey)
# Merge into Ptolemy (an earlier suggestion by Maestlin)
# Merge to Refraction (suggested by Ewlyahoocom)
As I see it, I think this historical discussion of refraction would form a good basis for a History of Optics discussion. Unless there's strong objection, I'm going to go ahead and rename it as History of Optics, and make this the core of the Ancient and Islamic section on that topic.  I have some ideas for an outline for the medieval section as well, and can tack on a few significant references. --SteveMcCluskey 16:24, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposal to rename 

message: This article lacks material from the Latin Middle Ages to Modern times.  I plan to add material on al-Kindi, Roger Bacon, John Pecham, Robert Grosseteste, and Witelo as time allows.  Additions of material on the development of optics from Kepler and Descartes to the present are most welcome. --SteveMcCluskey 15:57, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Rereading Lindberg's Theories of Vision, I noted the discussions of physiological and psychological optics, which should also be treated here.  There's also room to treat historical discussions of rainbows and other aspects of meteorological optics, which have a long history from Aristotle to Descartes and beyond, touching on the nature of colors in the rainbow and their relation to white sunlight.  --SteveMcCluskey 01:25, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Need for Expansion

message: :Rereading Lindberg's Theories of Vision, I noted the discussions of physiological and psychological optics, which should also be treated here.  There's also room to treat historical discussions of rainbows and other aspects of meteorological optics, which have a long history from Aristotle to Descartes and beyond, touching on the nature of colors in the rainbow and their relation to white sunlight.  --SteveMcCluskey 01:25, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Other aspects of optics

message: I just changed the title of a section from Optics in Persia and the Islamic World back to Optics in the Islamic World.  
If we were to name every culturally distinct region in the Islamic World we would end with something like Optics in Spain, North Africa, Egypt, Persia, Afghanistan, Indonesia and the Islamic World (and we still might offend those that I've left out).  To avoid such absurdity, I favor the shorter title. --SteveMcCluskey 17:06, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  ... the Islamic World 

message: I see no reason not to merge History of lensmaking into History of optics.  Since the History of lensmaking article is short it could probably be easily merged as a new section on "Lenses and Lensmaking" at the end of the current History of optics article.
In the long run, the lensmaking section will need to cite specific historical sources to support its details using the   format. --SteveMcCluskey 17:28, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I tried to merge it in, but got frustrated, as the topics are so dissimilar.  One is about making lenses, the other is about the science of optics.  Sure, they could both be done in one article, but who's willing to take it on? Dicklyon 05:26, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: OK, I just merged them by tacking Lenses and Lensmaking as a separate section.  It seems to fit there logically as a separate aspect from the discussion of optical theory in the rest of the article.  --SteveMcCluskey 00:50, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merge History of Lensmaking 

message: Added link to List of Astronomical Instrument Makers.  Just started the list, needs to be filled out more.  AppleRaven 20:20, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Astronomical Instrument Makers 

message: This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as start, and the rating on other projects was brought up to start class. BetacommandBot 09:54, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  WikiProject class rating

message: I check pages listed in :Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of :History of optics's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.
Reference named "Gorini":
From Science in the Middle Ages: Rosanna Gorini (2003). "Al-Haytham the Man of Experience. First Steps in the Science of Vision", International Society for the History of Islamic Medicine. Institute of Neurosciences, Laboratory of Psychobiology and Psychopharmacology, Rome, Italy: 
From Physics: Rosanna Gorini (2003). "Al-Haytham the Man of Experience. First Steps in the Science of Vision", International Society for the History of Islamic Medicine. Institute of Neurosciences, Laboratory of Psychobiology and Psychopharmacology, Rome, Italy: 
From Muslim world: Rosanna Gorini (2003), "Al-Haytham the Man of Experience: First Steps in the Science of Vision", International Society for the History of Islamic Medicine. Institute of Neurosciences, Laboratory of Psychobiology and Psychopharmacology, Rome, Italy:
From Physics in medieval Islam: Rosanna Gorini (2003). "Al-Haytham the Man of Experience. First Steps in the Science of Vision", International Society for the History of Islamic Medicine. Institute of Neurosciences, Laboratory of Psychobiology and Psychopharmacology, Rome, Italy.
From Islamic Golden Age: Rosanna Gorini (2003). "Al-Haytham the Man of Experience. First Steps in the Science of Vision", Journal of the International Society for the History of Islamic Medicine, 2003 (2): 53-55 [55]. Institute of Neurosciences, Laboratory of Psychobiology and Psychopharmacology, Rome, Italy.
From History of physics: : 
From Ibn al-Haytham: 
I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT⚡ 18:02, 25 September 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Problem has been fixed.--Srleffler (talk) 03:46, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Orphaned references in [[:History of optics]] 

message: History of lensmaking is redirected here and there is a section devoted to it, but this article (like Glasses, noted there) has a 300 year gap in its history from 1300 to 1600. Its a period where the entire industry and technical means of producing lenses (for spectacles) was developed. It was the development of the lens as a practical device by experimentation since the people creating them were not theoreticians and the optical theory of that day was so incorrect as to be totally useless for practical applications. This was the means by which a wide range of spectacles, the microscope, and the telescope were invented. We can start with a ref like Renaissance vision from spectacles to telescopes By Vincent Ilardi to try to fill this gap. Fountains of Bryn Mawr (talk) 16:16, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Gap in history

message: I added a sentence or two about him and it was deleted. The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography says:
:His List of 2000 Microscopic Objects (1835) is very important in the history of microscopy... his History of the Infusoria (1841) was long a standard work, and the impetus it gave to the study of biological science cannot be overestimated.
:Pritchard wrote several other books on aspects of natural history as seen through the microscope, on optical instruments, and on patents. He also wrote four papers on microscopical optics between 1827 and 1833 in the Quarterly Journal of Science, the Edinburgh Philosophical Magazine, and the Philosophical Magazine. He was elected fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1873. 
Is this trivia? Or does it give one example of how the field was pushed forward? BrainyBabe (talk) 20:24, 6 August 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Trivia does not mean the subject in question is trivial, it means the addition does not make sense re:an encyclopedia. I deleted the Pritchard sentence because it made the paragraph read like: "Short history of the microscope-Lippershey, Janssen, and Zacharias invented it, Faber named it, and some guy in England 200 years latter made a whole bunch of slides". If Andrew Pritchard was important to the history of the optical microscope (and remember, that viewpoint has to be fairly representational of what has been published by reliable sources on the history of the microscope) then you may want to find those citations and add him to History of the optical microscope. Fountains of Bryn Mawr (talk) 21:59, 6 August 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Andrew Pritchard 

message: The sentence about Salvino D'Armate claims (with citation) that he invented the wearable eyeglasses. Clicking onto his wiki page, though, and you see a direct contradiction: this is apparently a hoax! I don't know which to believe, but it seems we should get our story straight.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 118.92.82.36 (talk) 09:10, 25 December 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Reference to Salvino D'Armate has been removed.TimeForLunch (talk) 14:23, 23 December 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Salvino D'Armate 

message: I have removed "similar to modern concept of photons" from the section which earlier looked like this.
Photon is based on rigorous scientific method. Mere similarity with a mystical/metaphysical concept is not enough to equate photons with what ancient people said. Even Indian atomism concept are not actual atom. The atom or fundamental particles in Indian atomism is often either mystical entity or  something that is barely smaller than a speck of dust. ChandlerMinh (talk) 16:43, 15 September 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Buddhist