Faraday's Research on Optical Glass

JSGT V15 T212-T218

In 1824 the Royal Society appointed a committee of its Fellows and the Members of the Board of Longitude to consider the improvement of optical glass, especially such as would be suitable for telescope objectives. In 1825 a sub-committee was formed, consisting of Faraday, who was to make the glasses, Sir J. F. W. Herschel, who was to determine the refractive indices, and G. Dollond, who was to make up the glasses into lenses. A lengthy report was drawn up by Faraday at the end of 1829 and constituted the first of his Bakerian Lectures, and so long was it that it took three days to read, November 19th, December 3rd, and December 10th.

Arthur Marshall