Library Special Collections Blog
Well, Well, and What Have We Here: Optical Cards created by Mary Lewis in 1828
A mini-exhibit for August 2014 asks (but does not answer) the question: Who was Mary Lewis of Camp Hill (Birmingham, England?) and, in 1828, why did she make 58 carefully handwritten, illustrated flash cards which addressed problems, phenomena, and experiments in optics and vision?
Mary Lewis’s cards (BIOMED Ms. Coll. no. 347 RARE), each with a standard embossed border, were purchased by the History & Special Collections for the Sciences section of UCLA Library Special Collections from Samuel Gedge, a dealer in antiquarian books, manuscripts, and ephemera. They are on display at the Louise M. Biomedical Library (1st floor lobby/research commons) through Labor Day, 2014.
This mini-exhibit is part of an occasional series, Well, Well, and What Have We Here, which brings to light (no pun intended) surprising, unexplained, and sometimes unexplainable items from or added to the collections.
Explanations are welcomed.
The cards are titled:
- [Title]
- A ray of light
- In the same medium, the rays of light are in straight lines
- Rays of light may be bended
- The same joining of mediums will bend some rays and not others
- A ray passing obliquely through a plane glass goes on afterward parallel to its first direction though not in the same line
- An angle
- The angle of incidence
- The angle of reflection
- To see an object reflected from a plane looking glass
- Parallel rays of light
- Converging rays
- Diverging rays
- The eye sees an object by rays diverging from all the visible points of its surface
- A pencil of rays, and a radiant point
- A focus
- A double convex lens or glass, seen edgewise
- A plano-convex lens seen edgewise
- A double concave lens seen edgewise
- A plano-concave lens seen edgewise
- A meniscus or concavo-convex lens seen edgewise
- The radius of convexity of concavity of lenses
- A triangular prism seen end-wise
- The focus of the sun's parallel rays when transmitted through a double convex lens
- Parallel rays become parallel again by passing through two convex lenses placed parallel to each other & at double their focal distance
- The focus of the sun's (or any other) parallel rays, transmitted through a plano-convex lens
- Rays diverging from a radiant point in the focus of a lens are parallel after passing through the lens
- Rays diverging from a radiant point between a convex lens and its focus will continue to diverge, though in a less degree, after passing through the lens
- Rays from a radiant point beyond the focal distance of a convex lens will, after passing through the lens, converge to a point or focus on the other side of the lens
- Parallel rays passing through a double concave lens
- Parallel rays passing through a plano-concave lens
- Parallel rays passing thro' a solid sphere or globe of glass
- The angle of vision
- Why an object appears smaller and smaller as we recede further and further from it
- A convex lens magnifies the angle of vision, and why
- Rays from an object passing thro' a convex lens, will make a picture of the object in a dark room
- To form the picture mentioned on card 36, the object must be farther from the lens than the focal distance of the lens
- To find what proportion the size of the picture (card 36) bears to the size of the object
- The camera obscura
- The multiplying glass
- An artificial eye
- The human eye, with its coats and humours
- The sclerotica & cornea of the eye
- The choroides and ligamentum ciliare of the eye
- The retina and optic nerve of the eye
- The pupil and aqueous humour of the eye
- The crystalline and vitreous humours of the eye
- The manner of vision
- Why an object appears large when it is near the eye, and small when far from the eye
- Three patches being stuck on a board, to lose sight of the middle one, whilst both the others are visible
- The use of convex spectacle
- The use of concave spectacles
- Single microscope
- Refracting telescope
- The magic lantern
- The phantasmagoria lantern
- The polyphantasma
- Prismatic colours.
Russell Johnson
Curator/Librarian
History & Special Collections for the Sciences
UCLA Library Special Collections
Library Special Collections
UCLA Library Special Collections Blog
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