Alien Vision: Exploring the Electromagnetic Spectrum with Imaging Technology (SPIE Press Monograph Vol. PM104) - Softcover

Richards, Austin

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0819441422 ISBN 13: 9780819441423

Publisher: SPIE Publications, 2001

Synopsis

Austin Richards takes readers on a visual tour of the electromagnetic spectrum beyond the range of human sight, using imaging technology as the means to 'see' invisible light. Dozens of colorful images and clear, concise descriptions make this an intriguing, accessible technical book. Richards explains the light spectrum, including visible light, and describes the advanced imaging technologies that enable humans to synthesize our own version of 'alien' vision at different wavelengths, with applications ranging from fire fighting and law enforcement to botany and medicine.

Contents

- List of Figures

- Preface

- Introduction

- Infrared and Ultraviolet: The Edges of the Rainbow

- Thermal Imaging: We All Glow in the Dark

- Microwave and Millimeter-Wave Imaging: Piercing the Veil

- X Rays and Gamma Rays: Crookes Tubes and Nuclear Light

- Acoustic Imaging: Seeing with Sound

- Sweeping through the Spectrum: Comparative Imagery

- Epilogue

- Glossary

- Bibliography and Internet Resources

- Index

About this title

About the Author

Austin Richards is an industrial physicist at Indigo Systems Corp. in Santa Barbara, Calif. He received a bachelor's degree in physics from Amherst College in 1989 and a Ph.D. in astrophysics from UC Berkeley in 1995. He has held postdoctoral fellowships at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. and the University of Stockholm, Sweden, where he contributed to the AMANDA project, a kilometer-scale neutrino detector under construction in Antarctica. He teaches part-time at the Brooks Institute of Photography in Santa Barbara.

Edition details

• Publisher: SPIE Publications
• Publication date: 2001
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0819441422
• ISBN 13: 9780819441423
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 160