New breakthrough in optic lenses
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Here’s an interesting story, A scientist in Mexico has created a new formula for crafting lenses that will help eliminate spherical aberration.
https://gizmodo.com/a-mexican-physicist-solved-a-2-000-year-old-problem-tha-1837031984
It’s a problem that plagues even the priciest of lenses, manufactured to the most exacting specifications: the center of the frame might be razor-sharp, but the corners and edges always look a little soft. It’s a problem that’s existed for thousands of years with optical devices, and one that was assumed to be unsolvable until a Mexican physicist developed a mind-melting formula that could revolutionize how lenses are manufactured
It would be interesting to get word from some optic company to see how this would effect scopes.
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I think it checks out ok....:)
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@tan_90 yea I had no idea what kind of math goes into making a lens, then I saw that image.
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@rhyno said in New breakthrough in optic lenses:
It would be interesting to get word from some optic company to see how this would effect scopes.
It will affect them in 2 ways:
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Better lenses, providing better edge to edge clarity and reduced fish eye in all scopes, but specifically cheap scopes.
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More expensive rifle scopes.
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One of the articles I read on it mentioned that it might also mean fewer lenses in the optical system (this was in regards to camera lenses) so maybe lighter and more robust scopes as well.
I thought it was a neat discovery, and also that there can still be improvements made.
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I am skeptical of any fix all for spherical aberration. A lens system that is difficult to focus comes to mind.
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@lathoto said in New breakthrough in optic lenses:
I am skeptical of any fix all for spherical aberration. A lens system that is difficult to focus comes to mind.
Why?
Isn't better... better?
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@orkan I'm going to go with "I'll believe it when I see it." In another life I was an amateur astronomer, grinding, polishing, and figuring parabolic mirrors to very tight tolerances. The thing about optical design is the trade offs. Spherical aberration is just one of six optical defects (defocus, spherical aberration, coma, astigmatism, field curvature, and image distortion). That doesn't include color. It might look good on paper. "When theory and practice collide, practice always wins." I believe you taught us that.
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@lathoto said in New breakthrough in optic lenses:
I believe you taught us that.
Theory is one thing. Facts are another. That's what I mainly teach.
I'm not qualified to proof his equations. However, if it solves what he says it solves, then its a step forward, which is a step in the right direction. It's ok that you're skeptical. However, I'm hopeful that we'll continue to see advancements in my lifetime. Experts are often the very people that hold back advancements with negativity. Important to not fall into that comfort level. Those doing the advancing, could do it a lot easier with support rather than resistance. If it's all fairy dust and has no real base, that will be outed in time. Yet I do truly enjoy passionate people advancing their skill sets.
Look at every new thing that comes along in the shooting world. It is all attacked relentlessly by a great many people who claim to be experts. Then later, they adopt it and talk about it as if it was their idea in the first place. If you don't believe that, you should try inventing something revolutionary for shooters. :)
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It was sometime in 2018 when he first came up with the equation, so I’m sure they’re on their way if not to testing. (I suppose that depends on whether there’s a machine out there that can grind a lens in the way the formula predicts, or even if it can hold the tolerances) but they have done simulation runs (assuming on a computer but I don’t know most of the articles are in Spanish) a quote from one article “Afterwards, the duo ran a simulation and calculated the efficacy with 500 rays, and the resulting average satisfaction for all examples was 99.9999999999%”
https://science.slashdot.org/story/19/07/08/2214254/physicist-solves-2000-year-old-optical-problem
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Optics are a highly R&Ded science, so I don't quite understand what makes this so groundbreaking. I would expect that any possible shape for a lens, including many that had no mathematical model to suggest it, has been experimentally ground and tested just to see how is worked. So I don't see how this is going to produce something that has never been produced before.
Now if this is a discovery of a mathematical model to make the design process easier, that is one thing. But something never-before-tried, I find that difficult to understand.
Optics are not my area of engineering expertise, but several people at my institution are high-level optics people. I will ask them to clarify for me the true meanings and revelations of this. I will relay to you here what they say when I get it.
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I remember when Simmons came out with the Aetec line of scopes. Aspherical lenses, boy they were the cats meow. I fell for it and bought one for around a hundred and fifty bucks. Buddy of mine had a slew of them on his pig killing rifles he used at night with a red spotlight. Better than a Zeiss he claimed. I still have one on a 6.5 x 55 but the second one I bought used I retired to the back of the cabinet. Certainly nothing like a Zeiss.
