Re: E. T. Bell and conical refraction - 1, 2, 3 and infinity ?

["James S. Marsh" <jsmarsh@UWF.EDU>]

Look in optics books.  I see references to conical refraction in optics
books by Wood, Born and Wolf,  Ditchburn, and Jenkins and White.   The last
is probably the most accessable.  JSMarsh



> In "Mathematics. Queen & Servant of Science" E. T. Bell mentions the
> effect of conical refraction for certain crystals was predicted by
> Hamilton (a good source of his writings on this topic may be found on
> http://www.maths.tcd.ie/pub/HistMath/People/Hamilton/ConicalRefraction/)
> and later verified experimentally. Are there any good more recent
> references on this topic ? Is the number of possible refracted rays
> determined by the number of nonequivalent (due to asymmetry) principal
> planes, so that the only possible number of refrated rays from an
> incident ray is 1, 2, 3 or infinite ?
> Thanks in advance.
> Inge H. A. Pettersen