Lens Discussion - Research Paper Example

The word lens was derived from a Latin word lentil since the shape of lentil has similar attributes to double-convex lens. According to Whitehouse (1999), it is believed that the oldest lens belonged to Ancient Assyria dating back 2700 years ago. Whitehouse also illustrated that the work of David Brewster of making a proposal of starting fires through a magnifying glass that concentrates sunlight, regenerated to evolution of the lens. Other historical records about the lens were retrieved in ancient Greece in a play called The Clouds by Aristophanes by mentioning about the burning glass.

This statement referred to the biconvex lenses that were used to produce fire through creating a common focus of the sunrays. The work of Pliny the Elder also expressed the usage of burning glasses in the Roman Empire, especially after providing the descriptions of magnifying effects of the glass that was filled with water. Glick (2005) shows that lenses were widely used in Europe, especially after the invention of spectacle in Italy. This invention created a progressive nature of optical industry to use lenses, where other Western nations expanded the idea including Venice, Florence, Germany, and Netherlands.

However, the optical industry created a room for invention of other technological advancements that changed the experimentation algorithms. For example, between 17th and 18th Centuries became a major progress for lens usage after microscope and telescope were invented. This caused the opticians to the draw board and came up with constructive lenses that formed the spherical figures in their surface and varying features of curvature. This led to the production of achromatic lens that is more compounded by Chester Moore Hall in 1733 at England.

This led to improvement of experimental operations in biological, physical, and chemical analogies. Currently, lenses are spherical in nature, where both longitudinal