Mexican physicist’s solution to 2,000-yo problem could lead to improved lenses

Post by m0d0nne11 » Fri, Aug 09, 2019, 11:52 AM UTC

I note that Roger Cicala over at lensrentals.com (in an interesting article showing disassembly of a fancy zoom unit) had this to say:

No, no it can't. It was really impressive mathematics (and according to several mathematicians, the formula was left more complex than necessary to make it look more impressive). In theory, it could improve ONE of the dozens of aberrations, but only in the center of the lens, not off-axis.

Not to take anything away from a very impressive intellectual effort, but basically it solved a problem nobody was particularly trying to solve (the stuff about '2,000 year old mystery' was so over-the-top it makes me wonder if the authors were having a bit of fun).

Post by gus_massa » Fri, Aug 09, 2019, 1:56 PM UTC

m0d0nne11 wrote: post #11

I note that Roger Cicala over at lensrentals.com (in an interesting article showing disassembly of a fancy zoom unit) had this to say: No, no it can't. It was really impressive mathematics (and according to several mathematicians, the formula was left more complex than necessary to make it look more impressive). In theory, it could improve ONE of the dozens of aberrations, but only in the center of the lens, not off-…

In the paper and the code with the paper, they have a sane formulation that use 5 or 6 intermediate variables. (Each variable is calculated using the parameters and the previous variables, all have closed forms.)

The big formula is only a gimmick for the press article. My guess is that the journalist asked for it and then they just made Mathematica make all the replacements and give a nice gif.

Re: Mexican physicist’s solution to 2,000-yo problem could lead to improved lenses

Re: Mexican physicist’s solution to 2,000-yo problem could lead to improved lenses