Lens
A lens is an optical device
which transmits and refracts light,
converging or diverging the beam.
A simple lens consists of a single
optical element.
Lens
A compound lens is an array of simple lenses
(elements) with a common axis, the use of
multiple elements allows more optical
aberrations to be corrected than is possible
with a single element. Lenses are typically
made of glass or transparent plastic. Elements
which refract electromagnetic radiation outside
the visual spectrum are also called lenses: for
instance, a microwave lens can be made
from paraffin wax.
Lenses are used to
focus light.
History of Lenses
The word lens comes from the Latin name of the lentil, because a double-convex
lens is lentil-shaped. The genus of the lentil plant is Lens, and the most
commonly eaten species is Lens culinaris. The lentil plant also gives its name to
a geometric figure.
The oldest lens artifact is the Nimrud lens, which is over two thousand years old, dating back to
ancient Assyria David Brewster proposed that it may have been used as a magnifying glass,
or as a burning-glass to start fires by concentrating sunlight. Another early reference
to magnification dates back to ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs in the 8th century BC,
which depict "simple glass meniscal lenses".
Lenses came into widespread use in Europe with the invention
of spectacles, probably in Italy in the 1280s. This was the start of the optical
industry of grinding and polishing lenses for spectacles, first in Venice and
Florence in the thirteenth century, and later in the spectacle-making
centers in both the Netherlands and Germany.
The practical development and experimentation with lenses led to the
invention of the compound optical microscope around 1595, and
the refracting telescope in 1608, both of which appeared in the spectacle-
making centers in the Netherlands.
Nimrud Lens
First Lens to be known.
Construction of Simple Lenses
Most lenses are spherical lenses: their two surfaces are parts of
the surfaces of spheres, with the lens axis ideally perpendicular to
both surfaces. Each surface can be convex (bulging outwards from
the lens), concave (depressed into the lens), or planar (flat). The
line joining the centers of the spheres making up the lens surfaces
is called the axis of the lens.
Types Of Lenses
Convex Lens :-
A convex lens is a converging lens which works much like a concave mirror. This kind
of lens is thicker in the middle and thinner towards the edges, like the lens in a
magnifying glass. The image is changed by the position of the object in relation to
the focal length and the radius of curvature. If the object is beyond 2F, the image is
real, inverted and reduced, at 2F real, inverted and the same height, between F and
2F real, inverted, and magnified, at F there is no image, and in front of F, the image
is virtual, erect, and magnified.
Concave Lens :-
A concave lens is a diverging lens which works similar to the convex mirror. This lens is
thicker towards the edges and thin in the middle and are used in helping correction of
nearsightedness. All images produced by concave lenses are virtual, erect, and
reduced. There is an error in lenses, most notably in concave lenses called chromatic
aberration, referring to the fact that the focal length of a lens can vary with the
wavelength of light that is passed through it. This can be corrected by cementing two
lenses together (one convex, one concave) into a single lens.
Image Formation in
Convex Lens
(Real Picture)
Image Formation in
Concave Lens
(Real Picture)
