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Re: light and color textbooks for undergraduates



Have you taken a look at "Light and Color in Nature and Art," by S.
Williamson and H. Cummins? It's a marvelous book. (You may well
have to use more than one book in the course.) Wolfgang



I was wondering if some of you could offer your opinions on textbooks for a
general science course (i.e. for non-science majors) on light and color.
Basically our course covers color, perception and the eye; light
production; geometrical optics; and physical optics. We put a heavy
emphasis on non-explicit mathematical reasoning and conceptual development,
but we do require our students to manipulate basic equations.

Currently we use "Light Science: Physics and the Visual Arts" by Rossing
and Chiaverina (published by Springer) We feel this book is not quite as in
depth as we'd like. For example, it doesn't cover the inverse-square law
and omits the thin-lens equation.
We've also used "Seeing the Light: Optics in Nature, Photography, Color,
Vision, and Holography" by Falk, Brill, and Stork (published by Wiley) This
book has more depth to it; however the layout of the text is quite busy, as
such the students are understandably somewhat overwhelmed by it.

Thanks in advance,

Jeff
Western Maryland College
(soon to be renamed McDaniel College)