Look up lens in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Lens or Lense may refer to:

Optics[link]

• Lens (optics), an optical element which converges or diverges light
  • Lens (anatomy), a part of the eye
  • Corrective lens for correction of human vision
    • Contact lens, placed on the cornea of the eye
  • Camera lens, a lens designed for use on a camera

Focusing of other radiation and forces[link]

• Gravitational lens, a massive astronomical object which causes visual distortions
• Electrostatic lens, a device used to focus or collimate electron beams
• Explosive lens, a shaped explosive charge with focused blast
• Microwave lens, used to focus microwave radiation in slotted waveguide antennas

Lentil-shaped things[link]

• Lens (genus), the genus of the lentil plant
• Lens (geometry), a geometric shape formed from two arcs
• Lens (geology), a body of ore or rock that is thick in the middle and thin at the edges
• Lens (hydrology), a layer of fresh water derived from rainfall, overlying saline groundwater
• Kamera lens (biology), a unicellular, flagellate organism and the only species of the genus Kamera.

Places[link]

• Arrondissement of Lens, in the département of Pas-de-Calais, France
  • Lens, Pas-de-Calais, a commune in that arrondissement
    • RC Lens, its football (soccer) club
• Lens, Belgium
• Lens, Valais, Switzerland

People[link]

• Louis Lens, Flemish rose breeder
• Nicholas Lens, Belgian composer
• Josef Lense, physicist
• Jeremain Lens, Dutch-Surinam footballer

Other uses[link]

• Laser engineered net shaping, a rapid prototyping technology capable of building fully dense metal parts
• Perspective (cognitive)
• Lens (computer science)
• Lens, a fictional alien device in E. E. Smith's Lensman series

This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the same title. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.

Carl Zeiss
Carl Zeiss
Born	(1816-09-11)11 September 1816 Weimar, Germany
Died	3 December 1888(1888-12-03) (aged 72) Jena, Germany
Nationality	German
Fields	Optics
Institutions	Carl Zeiss AG
Alma mater	University of Jena
Known for	Optical Lenses

Large microscope by Carl Zeiss (1879)

Carl Zeiss (11 September 1816 – 3 December 1888) was a German maker of optical instruments commonly known for the company he founded, Carl Zeiss Jena (now: Carl Zeiss AG). Zeiss made contributions to lens manufacturing that have aided the modern production of lenses. Raised in Weimar, Germany, he became a notable lens-maker in the 1840s when he created high-quality lenses that were "wide open", or in other words, had a very large aperture range that allowed for very bright images. He did this in the city of Jena at a self-opened workshop, where he started his lens-making career. At first his lenses were only used in the production of microscopes, but when cameras were invented, his company began manufacturing high-quality lenses for cameras.

Youth[link]

Zeiss began his life in pre-imperial Germany where he went to a grammar school, and undertook apprenticeship under Dr. Friedrich Körner, mechanic and supplier to the court. He later attended lectures in mathematics, experimental physics, anthropology, mineralogy and optics at the University of Jena. After seven years he opened a small workshop with hardly any tools. He made many lenses but had little recognition until 1847 when he hired his second and third apprentice.

Life[link]

In 1847 Carl Zeiss started making microscopes full-time. His first innovation was simpler single-lens microscopes intended for dissecting work. He sold 23 of them during the first year of production. Zeiss decided he needed a new challenge, so he began making compound microscopes. He created the Stand I which went to market in 1857.

In 1861 he was awarded a gold medal at the Thuringian Industrial Exhibition for his designs. They were considered to be among the best scientific instruments in Germany. By this point, he had about twenty people working for him and an expanding business. In 1866 the Zeiss workshop sold their thousandth microscope.

In 1872, he joined up with physicist Ernst Abbe. Their combined efforts lead to the discovery of the Abbe sine condition. Theoretically, the Abbe sine condition could greatly improve how well lenses could be made. However, a form of glass strong enough to fully test the theory did not exist at the time. Abbe then met Otto Schott, a thirty-year-old glass chemist who had just received his doctorate. They collaborated and in 1886, produced a new type of glass that could fully use the Abbe sine condition. This new type of glass made possible a new class of microscope objective, the apochromatic (often abbreviated 'apo'). Zeiss used water immersion to form a compensating eyepiece which produced images with little or no color distortion.

Zeiss's son had entered the business with him, but retired soon after Zeiss's death of natural causes on 3 December 1888. The business was incorporated as the Carl-Zeiss-Stiftung in 1889. It gained an international reputation for the manufacture of optical instruments of all kinds, and remains in business to this day, where the company might be most known for its broad selection of optical scopes and binoculars.

Publications[link]

• Auerbach, Das Zeisswerk und die Carl Zeiss-Stiftung in Jena (third edition, Jena, 1907)

See also[link]

• Calculation of glass properties - a significant contribution to the success of the companies Zeiss and Schott
• Optical Museum Jena

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Carl Zeiss

• Carl Zeiss Biography
• Zeiss Company History Site
• Zeiss microscopes resource site
• First simple microscope made by Carl Zeiss in 1847/1848
• Early compound microscope made by Carl Zeiss