Editing Lens (section)

== History ==
{{See also|History of optics|Camera lens}}
{{expand section|history after 1823|date=January 2012}}
[[File:Optics from Roger Bacon's De multiplicatone specierum.jpg|thumb|right|Light being refracted by a spherical glass container full of water. [[Roger Bacon]], 13th century]]
[[File:LSST Telescope - L1 Lens of the camera.jpg|thumb|Lens for [[Large Synoptic Survey Telescope|LSST]], a planned sky surveying telescope{{update after|2024|08|reason= Mission planned for August 2024}}]]
The word ''[[:wikt:lens|lens]]'' comes from {{lang|la|[[Lens (genus)|lēns]]}}, the Latin name of the [[lentil]] (a seed of a lentil plant), because a double-convex lens is lentil-shaped. The lentil also gives its name to a [[Lens (geometry)|geometric figure]].{{Efn|The variant spelling ''lense'' is sometimes seen. While it is listed as an alternative spelling in some dictionaries, most mainstream dictionaries do not list it as acceptable.
* {{cite book |last=Brians |first=Paul |year=2003 |title=Common Errors in English |publisher=Franklin, Beedle & Associates |isbn=978-1-887902-89-2 |page=[https://archive.org/details/commonerrorsinen0000bria/page/125 125] |url=https://archive.org/details/commonerrorsinen0000bria/page/125 |access-date=28 June 2009 }} Reports "lense" as listed in some dictionaries, but not generally considered acceptable.
* {{cite book |year=1995 |title=Merriam-Webster's Medical Dictionary |publisher=Merriam-Webster |isbn=978-0-87779-914-6 |page=[https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780877799146/page/368 368] |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780877799146/page/368 }} Lists "lense" as an acceptable alternate spelling.
* {{cite web |url=https://writingexplained.org/lens-or-lense |website=writingexplained.org |title=Lens or Lense – Which is Correct? |date=2017-04-30 |access-date=21 April 2018 |archive-date=21 April 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180421163426/https://writingexplained.org/lens-or-lense |url-status=live }} Analyses the almost negligible frequency of use and concludes that the misspelling is a result of a wrong singularisation of the plural (lenses).}}

Some scholars argue that the archeological evidence indicates that there was widespread use of lenses in antiquity, spanning several millennia.<ref>{{cite journal |title=Lenses in antiquity |first1=George |last1=Sines |first2=Yannis A. |last2=Sakellarakis |journal=American Journal of Archaeology |volume=91 |issue=2 |year=1987 |pages=191–196 |jstor=505216 |doi=10.2307/505216|s2cid=191384703 }}</ref> The so-called [[Nimrud lens]] is a rock crystal artifact dated to the 7th century BCE which may or may not have been used as a magnifying glass, or a burning glass.<ref name="Nimrud lens">{{Cite news |first=David |last=Whitehouse |title=World's oldest telescope? |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/380186.stm |date=1 July 1999 |work=BBC News |access-date=10 May 2008 |archive-date=1 February 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090201185740/http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/380186.stm |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=The Nimrud lens/The Layard lens |publisher=The British Museum |website=Collection database |url=https://www.britishmuseum.org/research/search_the_collection_database/search_object_details.aspx?objectid=369215&partid=1 |access-date=25 November 2012 |archive-date=19 October 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121019022100/http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/search_the_collection_database/search_object_details.aspx?objectid=369215&partid=1 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite book | author=D. Brewster |year=1852 | chapter=On an account of a rock-crystal lens and decomposed glass found in Niniveh | title=Die Fortschritte der Physik | publisher=Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft |page=355 |language=de | chapter-url={{google books|plainurl=yes|id=bHwEAAAAYAAJ|page=355}}}}</ref> Others have suggested that certain [[Egyptian hieroglyphs]]  depict "simple glass meniscal lenses".<ref name=Kriss>{{Cite journal |last1=Kriss |first1=Timothy C. |last2=Kriss |first2=Vesna Martich |title=History of the Operating Microscope: From Magnifying Glass to Microneurosurgery |journal=Neurosurgery |volume=42 |issue=4 |pages=899–907 |date=April 1998 |doi=10.1097/00006123-199804000-00116 |pmid=9574655}}</ref>{{Verify source|date=July 2013}}

The oldest certain reference to the use of lenses is from [[Aristophanes]]' play ''[[The Clouds]]'' (424 BCE) mentioning a burning-glass.<ref name="The Clouds" /> 
[[Pliny the Elder]] (1st century) confirms that burning-glasses were known in the Roman period.<ref>[[Pliny the Elder]], ''The Natural History'' (trans. John Bostock) [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?lookup=Plin.+Nat.+37.10 Book XXXVII, Chap. 10] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081004061452/https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?lookup=Plin.+Nat.+37.10 |date=4 October 2008 }}.</ref>
Pliny also has the earliest known reference to the use of a [[corrective lens]] when he mentions that [[Nero]] was said to watch the [[gladiator]]ial games using an [[emerald]] (presumably [[wikt:concave|concave]] to correct for [[myopia|nearsightedness]], though the reference is vague).<ref>Pliny the Elder, ''The Natural History'' (trans. John Bostock) [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?lookup=Plin.+Nat.+37.16 Book XXXVII, Chap. 16] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080928081650/https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?lookup=Plin.+Nat.+37.16 |date=28 September 2008 }}</ref> Both Pliny and [[Seneca the Younger]] (3 BC–65 AD) described the magnifying effect of a glass globe filled with water.

[[Ptolemy]] (2nd century) wrote a book on ''[[Optics (Ptolemy)|Optics]]'', which however survives only in the Latin translation of an incomplete and very poor Arabic translation.
The book was, however, received by medieval scholars in the Islamic world, and commented upon by [[Ibn Sahl (mathematician)|Ibn Sahl]] (10th century), who was in turn improved upon by [[Alhazen]] (''[[Book of Optics]]'', 11th century). The Arabic translation of Ptolemy's ''Optics'' became available in Latin translation in the 12th century ([[Eugenius of Palermo]] 1154). Between the 11th and 13th century "[[reading stone]]s" were invented. These were primitive plano-convex lenses initially made by cutting a glass sphere in half. The medieval (11th or 12th century) rock crystal [[Visby lens]]es may or may not have been intended for use as burning glasses.<ref>{{cite book |title=The Complete Book of Fire: Building Campfires for Warmth, Light, Cooking, and Survival |first1=Buck |last1=Tilton |publisher=Menasha Ridge Press |year=2005 |isbn=978-0-89732-633-9 |page=25 |url={{google books|plainurl=yes|id=Qgd4QB1Eje0C|p=PA25}}}}</ref>

[[Spectacles]] were invented as an improvement of the "reading stones" of the high medieval period in Northern Italy in the second half of the 13th century.<ref>{{cite book |last=Glick |first=Thomas F. |title=Medieval science, technology, and medicine: an encyclopedia |year=2005 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-0-415-96930-7 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SaJlbWK_-FcC |author2=Steven John Livesey |author3=Faith Wallis |access-date=24 April 2011 |page=167 |archive-date=20 January 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230120115105/https://books.google.com/books?id=SaJlbWK_-FcC |url-status=live }}</ref> This was the start of the optical industry of grinding and polishing lenses for spectacles, first in Venice and Florence in the late 13th century,<ref>Al Van Helden. [http://galileo.rice.edu/sci/instruments/telescope.html The Galileo Project > Science > The Telescope] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20040623033108/http://galileo.rice.edu/sci/instruments/telescope.html |date=23 June 2004 }}. Galileo.rice.edu. Retrieved on 6 June 2012.</ref> and later in the spectacle-making centres in both the [[Netherlands]] and [[Germany]].<ref>{{cite book |author=Henry C. King |title=The History of the Telescope |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KAWwzHlDVksC |access-date=6 June 2012 |date=28 September 2003 |publisher=Courier Dover Publications |isbn=978-0-486-43265-6 |page=27 |archive-date=2 July 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230702172014/https://books.google.com/books?id=KAWwzHlDVksC |url-status=live }}</ref>
Spectacle makers created improved types of lenses for the correction of vision based more on empirical knowledge gained from observing the effects of the lenses (probably without the knowledge of the rudimentary optical theory of the day).<ref>{{cite book |author1=Paul S. Agutter |author2=Denys N. Wheatley |title=Thinking about Life: The History and Philosophy of Biology and Other Sciences |url={{google books|plainurl=yes|id=Gm4bqeBMR8cC|p=17}} |access-date=6 June 2012 |date=12 December 2008 |publisher=Springer |isbn=978-1-4020-8865-0 |page=17}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |author=Vincent Ilardi |title=Renaissance Vision from Spectacles to Telescopes |url={{google books|plainurl=yes|id=id=peIL7hVQUmwC|p=210}} |access-date=6 June 2012 |year=2007 |publisher=American Philosophical Society |isbn=978-0-87169-259-7 |page=210 }}{{Dead link|date=July 2023 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref> The practical development and experimentation with lenses led to the invention of the compound [[optical microscope]] around 1595, and the [[refracting telescope]] in 1608, both of which appeared in the spectacle-making centres in the [[Netherlands]].<ref>[http://nobelprize.org/educational_games/physics/microscopes/timeline/index.html Microscopes: Time Line] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100109122901/http://nobelprize.org/educational_games/physics/microscopes/timeline/index.html |date=9 January 2010 }}, Nobel Foundation. Retrieved 3 April 2009</ref><ref name="LZZginzib4C page 55">{{cite book |author=Fred Watson |title=Stargazer: The Life and Times of the Telescope |url={{google books|plainurl=yes|id=2LZZginzib4C|p=55}} |access-date=6 June 2012 |date=1 October 2007 |publisher=Allen & Unwin |isbn=978-1-74175-383-7 |page=55}}</ref>

{{further|History of the telescope}}
With the invention of the telescope and microscope there was a great deal of experimentation with lens shapes in the 17th and early 18th centuries by those trying to correct chromatic errors seen in lenses. Opticians tried to construct lenses of varying forms of curvature, wrongly assuming errors arose from defects in the spherical figure of their surfaces.<ref>This paragraph is adapted from the 1888 edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica.</ref> Optical theory on [[refraction]] and experimentation was showing no single-element lens could bring all colours to a focus. This led to the invention of the compound [[achromatic lens]] by [[Chester Moore Hall]] in [[England]] in 1733, an invention also claimed by fellow Englishman [[John Dollond]] in a 1758 patent.

Developments in transatlantic commerce were the impetus for the construction of modern lighthouses in the 18th century, which utilize a combination of elevated sightlines, lighting sources, and lenses to provide navigational aid overseas. With maximal distance of visibility needed in lighthouses, conventional convex lenses would need to be significantly sized which would negatively affect the development of lighthouses in terms of cost, design, and implementation. Fresnel lens were developed that considered these constraints by featuring less material through their concentric annular sectioning. They were first fully implemented into a lighthouse in 1823.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Julia |first=Elton |date=July 18, 2013 |title=A Light to Lighten our Darkenss: Lighthouse Optics and the Later Development of Fresnel's Revolutionary Refracting Lens 1780-1900 |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1179/175812109X449612 |journal=The International Journal for the History of Engineering & Technology |volume=79 |issue=2 |pages=72–76 |doi=10.1179/175812109X449612 |via=Taylor & Francis|url-access=subscription }}</ref>