Customer Reviews

Optics, 2nd Edition

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This text has the perfect mix of mathematics and amusement. Covering a very broad spectrum, Hecht gives brief historical introductions to the topics, includes the math needed for reasonable mastery of the subject, and often offers the reader a homemade experiment to demonstrate the concepts. The figures are good, as are the problems at the end of each chapter. As an optical engineer, I find myself referring to the section on Fresnel reflection often, but some of the later chapters on Fourier optics and coherence theory make fascinating and not overwhelming night reading. I recommend this text highly to undergraduate instructors and optical engineers, but perhaps the highest compliment I can give this book is that I frequently recommend it to technical people who rarely dabble in optics, but who need a readable reference on the widest variety of optics topics.

I used this book as an undergrad and found it difficult to learn from. I thought the book lacked enough examples and I often found myself reading a section several times and still not feeling confident that I understood it.