What are the grades of Optical Glass?

[AgX]

Schneider and their then Kern susidiary

Kern never was owned by Schneider. They instead were bought by Wild-Leitz and closed three years later.

 

[guangong]

Just to clear up a small matter. Schott glass is a member of the Zeiss Foundation. The Foundation was formed by Prof. Ernst Abbe, Roderick Zeiss and Mr. Schott to ensure the development of the German optical science and industry as well as promoting progressive working conditions. Zeiss Ikon was an attempt by the Foundation to rescue the German camera industry by consolidating and reducing duplicate competition during the terrible economic conditions of the 1920s.
The trademark judgement against the DDR and Zeiss Dresden was based on the fact that the DDR facilities were a state owned corporation for profit and did not share the same scientific and humanitarian goals of the Zeiss Foundation.
In short, Schott glassworks is a part of the overall Zeiss Foundation.

 

[flavio81]

Right now she is pursuing a double major in electrical and computer engineering. This will also give her a minor in math. She has all ready gotten most of her math courses out of the way at community college. This is her first semester at Rolla and she has just started taking actual engineering courses. She really enjoys it and is doing very well.

Can i be your son-in-law?

Also, hooray for more ladies into engineering!! Following the steps of Ada Lovelace, Hedy Lamarr, and so on...

Analog electronics is beautiful, and something that will never die. Computers are digital, the world is analog. So analog EE have the important task of interfacing both worlds.

Nodda Dumma, i read that the US Navy used the Canon F-1 as an official camera, and previously the Topcons. Was this the case?

 

[Nodda Duma]

flavio: Maybe in the fleet, but at the test range / research lab I worked at, there were all different brands of cameras depending on specific needs. Canons, Nikons, those wierd oscilloscope screen Polaroids, and all the different brands of digital cameras competing for market share at the start of the digital revolution. We were free to purchase whatever we wanted as long as it was under a certain dollar amount, a true need for it, and the cost was covered in the program or capital budget. I do remember buying a bunch of Canons soley in order to strip out the pellicle beamsplitters to evaluate for use in a different application. I seem to think they were either full-frame digital Canons (5D?) or the latest professional 35mm SLR's available at the time? Brand new and we trashed them taking the pellicles out.

Plus there were all the non-visible (and visible) imaging systems that I designed optics for and tested. Ironically enough I was sick of digital even before the digital revolution took off, simply because one of my major tasks early on was characterizing the focal plane arrays that were hitting the market. I stuck with film so that I wouldn't be thinking of work while I was taking pictures.

 

[DREW WILEY]

You kinda argue against yourself there, Ian, by including the analogy of tessars. It's hard to think of any camera company that DIDN'T make tessar
design lenses, whether they owned right to the original term itself or not. All these patents have long been prehistoric anyway. Anybody could hypothetically make cemented triplets that would be classified as dagors, even if the term itself somehow couldn't be employed for marketing purposes. At this stage of history, it would be like claiming the term "bicycle" is proprietary. And as far as glasses an intricacies involved, both tessars and dagors designs are probably over a hundred of years old, and gone through many modernizations and revisions. My Nikkor M lenses are a modern multicoated rendition of the tessar, just as the Kerns were of as far the older Dagor formula goes.

 

[michr]

Those who were expecting a sincere topic might find interesting the catalog from Schott Glass which describes grades of optical glass

http://www.schott.com/d/advanced_op...al-glass-pocket-catalog-february-2016-row.pdf

Thanks, that's something one can sink their teeth into, unlike OP's question.

 

[Alan Gales]

Can i be your son-in-law?

Also, hooray for more ladies into engineering!!

You will have to get in line.

My daughter currently has a boyfriend. He is also from St. Louis but is at Rolla studying Electrical Engineering too. They were both part of a study group at community college. They don't really have much time for dating but they do spend a lot of time studying together.


I agree, hooray for more ladies into engineering!

 

[flavio81]

You will have to get in line.

My daughter currently has a boyfriend. He is also from St. Louis but is at Rolla studying Electrical Engineering too. They were both part of a study group at community college. They don't really have much time for dating but they do spend a lot of time studying together.

It's true, there is almost no time for dating on engineering school! In my university, EE ("Electronical Engineering" in this case*) was seen even harder than my career (Engineering Informatics). And mechanical engineering was seen as still even tougher.

On the opposite, "Industrial Engineering" was seen as so light and easy, they were like ostracized, considered "non-engineers" by almost all the students of the other engineering disciplines. And yes, they were dating and partying and entertaining themselves generously.

** Here in my country there is a difference between Electronics Engineering and what they call "Mechanical-electrical engineering"; the former deals with electronics and small-power devices while the latter deals with power line transmission, power generation, and anything requiring industrial-scale electrics.

 

[chip j]

Can i be your son-in-law?

Also, hooray for more ladies into engineering!! Following the steps of Ada Lovelace, Hedy Lamarr, and so on...

Analog electronics is beautiful, and something that will never die. Computers are digital, the world is analog. So analog EE have the important task of interfacing both worlds.

Nodda Dumma, i read that the US Navy used the Canon F-1 as an official camera, and previously the Topcons. Was this the case?

When I was in the service-66,67 & 68,-us Army photographers in Germany used left-over olive-drab Speed Graphics from WW2 ( and a M3 for slides). The Navy had Topcons, and in Vietnam they were issued Nikons & Leicas.

 

[ph]

Most interesting transformation of a somewhat amorphous question.

For the optics historians here, you might wish to visit the website holding the Kern documents that were rescued in the home of Switars, Genevars etc. in Aarau. Prototypes and documentation were apparently discarded when the new owners came in.

p.

 

[AgX]

To the contrary. The new management was not interested in the long existing collection by but intervention of employees the management gifted it the city and at the closure of Kern the official archive was handed over too.
It is possible though that the collection has deficits on the photopgraphic field.

 

[Nodda Duma]

You will have to get in line.

My daughter currently has a boyfriend. He is also from St. Louis but is at Rolla studying Electrical Engineering too. They were both part of a study group at community college. They don't really have much time for dating but they do spend a lot of time studying together.


I agree, hooray for more ladies into engineering!

Speaking of women in engineering..

My wife was a Navy Flight Test Engineer. She graduated from UCSB as a mechanical engineer, and got hired into China Lake the same time as I. Her job description included hooking weapons systems up to F-18 aircraft and running tests from the cockpit. Imagine a drop-dead gorgeous tall blonde in skirt and high heals pushing 1000 lb ordnance around the hangar. She would set up flight tests and tell the test pilots what to do..briefing, debriefing, running the test from the control room, etc. She also flew out to the Gulf in '03 to do testing on the aircraft carriers stationed there (getting to enjoy a catapult launch while there).

Did the same for H-1 Cobras and would have gotten qualified to fly in the back-seat, but then we learned she was expecting (our first of three kids). She was actually relieved because she wasn't looking forward to the dunk test.

She then applied for and became director of the group that tests all new air weapon systems to be fielded by the Navy..... all before the age of 30.

By then she was a full time mom as well to our three kids. When we made it known we were leaving the Navy to move to NH, she received calls from contractors (Boeing, NG, etc) across the country lamenting her departure and wishing her good luck. When we moved out here, she switched careers entirely, going back to school to become a Physician Assistant. Graduating last year with honors, she now works at the highest-rated urgent care office in NH, and is doing very well.

There were several engineer amongst our circle of friends who were women and did cool stuff as well. One close friend applied for and was accepted into Navy Test Pilot School (they reserve one slot every year for a civilian engineer from China Lake). She learned to fly F-18's. Another friend designed advanved propellants for rocket motors and got to test them regularly.

I share this not to brag (though it's hard not to), but rather in the hope that her (and our friends) career serves as inspiration for your daughter and any other woman who enters the engineering field. There is really no limit to what a woman in engineering can do, as long as she applies herself and has the confidence to push the envelope.

In spite of doing so much cool stuff, my wife is very modest about the important work she has done, and rarely discusses it unless asked directly. I'm sure very few of her coworkers are aware of her past. I tend to be the one who shares because the career she has had can be so inspirational.

Really the only dumb thing she ever did was marrying someone like me

 

[Alan Gales]

Speaking of women in engineering..

My wife was a Navy Flight Test Engineer. She graduated from UCSB as a mechanical engineer, and got hired into China Lake the same time as I. Her job description included hooking weapons systems up to F-18 aircraft and running tests from the cockpit. Imagine a drop-dead gorgeous tall blonde in skirt and high heals pushing 1000 lb ordnance around the hangar. She would set up flight tests and tell the test pilots what to do..briefing, debriefing, running the test from the control room, etc. She also flew out to the Gulf in '03 to do testing on the aircraft carriers stationed there (getting to enjoy a catapult launch while there).

Did the same for H-1 Cobras and would have gotten qualified to fly in the back-seat, but then we learned she was expecting (our first of three kids). She was actually relieved because she wasn't looking forward to the dunk test.

She then applied for and became director of the group that tests all new air weapon systems to be fielded by the Navy..... all before the age of 30.

By then she was a full time mom as well to our three kids. When we made it known we were leaving the Navy to move to NH, she received calls from contractors (Boeing, NG, etc) across the country lamenting her departure and wishing her good luck. When we moved out here, she switched careers entirely, going back to school to become a Physician Assistant. Graduating last year with honors, she now works at the highest-rated urgent care office in NH, and is doing very well.

There were several engineer amongst our circle of friends who were women and did cool stuff as well. One close friend applied for and was accepted into Navy Test Pilot School (they reserve one slot every year for a civilian engineer from China Lake). She learned to fly F-18's. Another friend designed advanved propellants for rocket motors and got to test them regularly.

I share this not to brag (though it's hard not to), but rather in the hope that her (and our friends) career serves as inspiration for your daughter and any other woman who enters the engineering field. There is really no limit to what a woman in engineering can do, as long as she applies herself and has the confidence to push the envelope.

In spite of doing so much cool stuff, my wife is very modest about the important work she has done, and rarely discusses it unless asked directly. I'm sure very few of her coworkers are aware of her past. I tend to be the one who shares because the career she has had can be so inspirational.

Really the only dumb thing she ever did was marrying someone like me

Thank you for sharing, Jason. We need more uplifting stories shared with young people to inspire them. They are exposed to way too much negativity today. I'll show your post to my daughter when she comes home for Christmas break. I know that she will love reading it!


Sometimes I wonder why my wife married me too.

 

[Nodda Duma]

Just to clarify for folks outside the US: A Physician Assistant is the formal title for a medical professional that has the rough equivalent of a Master's Degree and performs 90% of the functions of a Doctor. The position was originally started to tap the deep and unique medical experience of Navy Corpsman returning from Vietnam. I think the position is unique to the US. PA's are in high demand here because they can do most of what doctors can at a lower labor rate.

Note a PA is very different than a Physician's assistant. No, it's not a good title but the medical community is hesitant to change it.

 

[tedr1]

Thank you, things were going great up to the point you introduced "PA" what is "PA"? (immigrant question)

 

[DREW WILEY]

My wife is a PA. It takes about five times as much education as a nurse, significant licensing headaches due to pharmaceutical responsibility (versus
the parallel NP career path, which can't write prescriptions), and there are typically no union contract protections. If we'd known all the headaches in advance, wish she'd just become an MD instead, since even getting into a top PA program can be more difficult than traditional med school, and just as expensive. But this is what she wanted to do, saved up for the school during a previous Biotech career, and then quickly recovered the schooling investment itself. Starting a new PA tweak next months. But here in the SF Bay Area, where far more PA's are getting cranked out of the three
major programs than there is local demand for, it's getting to be more like tech jobs: you work awhile without contract, typically get ripped off of
some of your pay ala same ole overtime and salary tricks MacDonalds uses, get laid off or outright quit, then pick up another job. I've lost all respect
for the medical field in general. Doctors can be the biggest skinflints on the planet. Still, if one can keep a step ahead of the wolf, it is a career field
that offers a lot of constant in-depth learning as well as opportunities to truly help people. If one just wants the latter with high pay and union
protections, just become an RN, which might be boring, but is a far more reliable as a career. Ironically, PA's do better in regions where nurses are
not unionized. Seems their union is pretty disgruntled with yet one more layer of hierarchy above them. Understandable.

 

[flavio81]

Thank you, things were going great up to the point you introduced "PA" what is "PA"? (immigrant question)

Public Adress (System)

 

[DREW WILEY]

While we're still off topic, the PA profession began with someone named Harry Edwards during the 67 Summer of Love in SF, who wanted to train
assistants to help with medical care for all the runaway hippies. This was also the real beginning of public free clinics. Then followed about twenty
years of legal battles until it became a Federally recognized profession. He was also noted for reviving Janis Joplin from her periodic heroin
overdoes - and obviously not there for her last one, in LA.

 

[Alan Gales]

While we're still off topic, the PA profession began with someone named Harry Edwards during the 67 Summer of Love in SF, who wanted to train
assistants to help with medical care for all the runaway hippies. This was also the real beginning of public free clinics. Then followed about twenty
years of legal battles until it became a Federally recognized profession. He was also noted for reviving Janis Joplin from her periodic heroin
overdoes - and obviously not there for her last one, in LA.

67 Summer of Love. Didn't you date Grace Slick back then, Drew?

 

[Nodda Duma]

Thank you, things were going great up to the point you introduced "PA" what is "PA"? (immigrant question)

Abbreviation for Physician Assistant

 

[tedr1]

Thank you. I am still puzzled and genuinely want to understand this because access to skilled medical care is a concern now I am old
Am I understanding this correctly? The difference seems to be an apostrophe s and a capital A. Or am I missing something?

 

[DREW WILEY]

Hi Alan. Well, back then I was supplying tools and lumber to Bill Graham's events. I hated working with those druggies because the were always
screaming and fighting with each other; but they were somehow highly efficient at stage and seating production. To make things absolutely comical,
my co-worker was coincidentally named Bill Graham himself, and also lived in SF. He'd go nuts constantly picking up the phone to, "Hey Dooood, ya gotta hear my band n give me a chance". More recently, a friend did rent Jefferson Airplane's old digs on the beach with its famous swimming pool
for his birthday party. Otherwise, it was a very conservative wooden Zen house, unlike Janis' place in town here, which is like walking inside Salvador
Dali's brain. When I was younger, I was hired as an architectural restoration and color consultant on any number of these places.

 

[Alan Gales]

Hi Alan. Well, back then I was supplying tools and lumber to Bill Graham's events. I hated working with those druggies because the were always
screaming and fighting with each other; but they were somehow highly efficient at stage and seating production. To make things absolutely comical,
my co-worker was coincidentally named Bill Graham himself, and also lived in SF. He'd go nuts constantly picking up the phone to, "Hey Dooood, ya gotta hear my band n give me a chance". More recently, a friend did rent Jefferson Airplane's old digs on the beach with its famous swimming pool
for his birthday party. Otherwise, it was a very conservative wooden Zen house, unlike Janis' place in town here, which is like walking inside Salvador
Dali's brain. When I was younger, I was hired as an architectural restoration and color consultant on any number of these places.

I've never seen Janis' place but I've seen pictures of her hand painted Porshe. Definitely not my style. I do like Salvador Dali's paintings but I wouldn't want my walls to look like that.

That's funny about your friend Bill Graham. My sister had a friend when she was young who's father was a dead ringer for country star Charlie Rich of "When We Get Behind Closed Doors" fame. People would ask him for his autograph. He'd oblige them and chuckle when they read his name and not Charlie Rich's.

 

[DREW WILEY]

I was involved when they were going to make Janis' place a kinda Graceland. It wasn't just paint. Huge stained glass walls, gold-leafed rococo ceilings, pillars with horny marble statues, then what killed the whole project.... The hideout and bomb factory in the basement, with the entrance
under her huge brass bed, which was discovered during the remodel, though the FBI knew about it all along and had even infiltrated the organization. Yeah, she was a real-deal terrorist, financing a deadly operation, and some people still want to keep it hush-hush. Remember the music and the
myth.

 

[Alan Gales]

I was involved when they were going to make Janis' place a kinda Graceland. It wasn't just paint. Huge stained glass walls, gold-leafed rococo ceilings, pillars with horny marble statues, then what killed the whole project.... The hideout and bomb factory in the basement, with the entrance
under her huge brass bed, which was discovered during the remodel, though the FBI knew about it all along and had even infiltrated the organization. Yeah, she was a real-deal terrorist, financing a deadly operation, and some people still want to keep it hush-hush. Remember the music and the
myth.

I've never heard anything like that before! What organization?