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Re: light and color textbooks for undergraduates



For non science majors or even science majors a good web based resource is
http://www.hhmi.org/senses/
This provides a good general overview of the senses including light and
color. It is very readable, but accurate and provides good supporting
evidence for the ideas.

John M. Clement
Houston, TX



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)