Discussions On Refraction Of Light | L. V. Tarasov, A. N Tarasova

The book is lively and written with lot of historical anecdotes and good problems at the end of each chapter.
Why does a beam of light change its direction when passing through the
interface between two media? Why does the setting sun appear oblate on
the horizon? What causes mirages? Why does a prism disperse sunlight
into different colours? How can one calculate the angular dimensions of a
rainbow? Why do distant objects appear close when we view them through a
telescope? What is the structure of the human eye?  Why does a light
ray get broken into two in a crystal? Can the plane of the polarization
of a ray be turned?  Can light rays be bent at will?  Is the refractive
index controllable?

This book will give the reader answers t o all
these questions. He will get to know how the law of refraction was
discovered, how Newton’s theory of the refraction of light in the
atmosphere was nearly lost forever, how Newton’s experiments changed
radically the old ideas concerning the origin of colours, how the
telescope was
invented, how it took twenty centuries to understand
the anatomy of  human vision, and how difficult it was t o discover the
polarization of light.  To make the historical and the physical aspects
of the book more convincing, the authors have introduced a number of
problems and their detailed solutions, geometrical constructions, and
optical diagrams of some instruments and devices. No doubt, the reader
will get a better understanding of some excerpts from the classics of
physical optics (for example, Newton’s “Optics” or Huygens’ “Treatise on
Light”) after they have been illustrated with the help of diagrams,
constructions and concrete problems.  Thus, as he explores the world of
refracted rays, the reader will be able to familiarize himself not only
with the physics of the topics being considered but also with the
evolution of some of the concepts of physics and their practical
applications to problems, constructions and optical schemes. It is the
authors’ hope that this journey will be both instructive and enjoyable.

This book was first published in English in 1984 by Mir in the Science for
Everyone series.