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Professor Emil Wolf: Top Optical Physicist Publishes New Book

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Professor Emil Wolf:
    Top Optical Physicist Publishes
    New Book

    (Professor Emil Wolf,
    Physics & Astronomy)

     by Lois H. Gresh

July 31, 2007: Wilson Professor of Optical Physics and Theoretical Physics Emil Wolf is one of the top 1,000 scientists of all time. Or so states British archeaologist Philip Barker and former President of the The British Society for the History of Science Ludmilla Jordanova in a 1999 book called, appropriately, Top 1000 Scientists: From the Beginning of Time to 2000 AD. It is a fitting tribute to Professor Wolf, who has long been considered a world authority in Optics. His latest book is Introduction to the Theory of Coherence and Polarization of Light, which will be available in September 2007 from Cambridge University Press. This book is the first to present a unified treatment of coherence and polarization, and it is expected to be of great interest to graduate students and researchers in Physics, Optics, and Engineering.

In 2007, Professor Wolf returned once again as editor of Progress in Optics, Volume 50, from North Holland and Elsevier Publishing. The first volume was published almost fifty years ago, and Wolf has served as its editor for many years.

Among all of his many publications, Professor Wolf is perhaps most well known for his classic book Principles of Optics: Electromagnetic Theory of Propagation, Interference and Diffraction of Light, which he wrote with Nobel Laureate Max Born. This book was first published in 1959 and is now in its seventh edition, which was published by Cambridge University Press in 1999.

More about Professor Wolf:

Professor Wolf is the recipient of the Frederic Ives Medal of the Optical Society of America (OSA) (1978), the Michelson Medal of the Franklin Institute (1980), the Max Born Award of the OSA (1987), the Marconi Medal of the Italian National Research Council (1987), the Gold Medal of the Czechoslovak Academy of Science (1991), the Medal of the Union of Czechoslovak Mathematicians and Physicists (1991), and the Gold Medal of Palacky University, Olomouc, Czechoslovakia (1991). He is an honorary member of the Optical Society of America, of which he was the President in 1978. He is also an honorary member of the Optical Societies of India and Australia and is the recipient of honorary degrees from the University of Groningen, the Netherlands (1989), the University of Edinburgh (1990), Palacky University (1992), the University of Bristol (1997), Laval University, Quebec (1997), the University of Franche Comte, France (1999) and Aalborg University, Denmark (1999).

Additional Details

For further details, see:

Barker, Philip. Top 1000 Scientists: From the Beginning of Time to 2000 AD (Sussex, England: Book Guild Publishing), 1999. Contains a forward by former President of the The British Society for the History of Science Ludmilla Jordanova.
ISBN 1-85776-405-6
Amazon.com listing
Book Guild Publishing

Wolf, Emil. Introduction to the Theory of Coherence and Polarization of Light (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press), 2007.
ISBN-13: 9780521822114
Cambridge University Press listing

Wolf, Emil, editor. Progress in Optics, Volume 50 (Amsterdam: North Holland and Elsevier Publishing), 2007.
ISBN: 978-0-444-53023-3
Elsevier Publishing listing

Born, Max and Wolf, Emil. Principles of Optics: Electromagnetic Theory of Propagation, Interference and Diffraction of Light (England: Cambridge University Press; Pergamon Press). Pergamon Press published the first through fifth editions from 1959 through 1975, and Cambridge University Press published the sixth edition in 1980 and the seventh in 1999.
ISBN: 0-521-64222-1
Amazon.com listing

For more information, please contact:
   Professor Emil Wolf
   Email: ewlupus@pas.rochester.edu
   Faculty Webpage: http://spider.pas.rochester.edu/mainFrame/people/pages_old/Wolf.html

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