REFLECTIONS ON A GENIUS

摘要

The year of 2015, chosen to stage the Unesco International Year of Light, coincided with many anniversaries regarding lighting history. One of these was Fresnel's Wave Theory of Light. Though quite frankly there could be an anniversary for Fresnel each year for the next six years to celebrate one of his many achievements, each one equal to the magnitude of his wave theory and which were shaped by it. My interest in him started when I was eight years old. I used to get paid a tiny amount to hand lamps up to electricians doing maintenance at a local dance hall where my mother worked. Some of these lights were the architectural lighting that lit the general interior space, but others were the stage lighting itself which used a 'Freznel' lens, as it was typically and wrongly pronounced. This lens, that was lit by a prefocused lamp, produced a soft-edge beam.