Alexander Eugen Conrady
Encyclopedia
Alexander Eugen Conrady (January 27, 1866 at Burscheid
, Germany
– June 16, 1944 in London
) was an eminent optical designer, academician, and text-book author.
, as A.E. Conrady records in an autobiographical account, augmented and published by his daughter Hilda Conrady Kingslake. His paternal male ancestors from at least the 17th century up to the time of his father had been headmasters in the school of the town of Uedem
. His father after beginning in that profession, turned to private business and the establishment of factories in the textile trade.
The family name had originally employed the Germanic spelling of "Conradi." This was later altered—perhaps in the 18th century—to Conradij in comformance to Dutch spelling, and A.E. Conrady himself employed this form of the name until World War I
.
Conrady knew less about his maternal ancestors, though he mentions that his maternal grandfather had been a distiller by the name of Scriverius, and that his mother (Mathilde) had been educated in his paternal grandfather's school, and then sent to a finishing school in the upper Rhine region for a year. His father acted as music teacher to his mother and they were later married in 1859, whereupon they settled in Burscheid
, Germany
, where his father had obtained the headmastership of a local school.
and Barmen
, Germany
, he proceeded to Bonn University in 1884, where he studied science and mathematics under such eminent instructors as Rudolf Lipschitz
, Rudolf Clausius
, Eduard Schönfeld
, and August Kekulé. In 1886, his father persuaded him to leave the university and sent him to England
to act as his agent with Stanfield, Brown and Co., learning how to set up button-sewing machines so that he might then return to Germany
and supervise their erection there.
In 1887, Conrady returned to Bonn
. He worked with the organic chemist, Otto Wallach
, who later won a Nobel Prize
in 1910. Conrady published his first two scientific papers (on chemistry) during this period.
under the Hohenzollern Kaisers—led him to abandon an academic career in Germany for travel and residence abroad. At the behest of George W. Brown of Stanfield, Brown and Co., Conrady travelled to North America
and then in 1896 to South Africa
. Business ventures of his own in the manufacture of electrical equipment and model-making did not succeed, but by way of them in the 1890s he found his ultimate calling in the study of microscope and telescope optics, at first as a diversion and hobby.
Conrady finally settled in England
, where he married Annie Bunney in 1901 and became a naturalized citizen in 1902. His daughter, Hilda, records that he "remained to the end a loyal and almost fanatically devoted citizen of his adopted country." During this period he finally abandoned his business ventures and went to work for Messrs. W. Watson and Son as a scientific adviser and lens designer. And the first of his four daughters was soon born. Perhaps as a result of this career-change and new-found domestic happiness, his bibliographic output increased dramatically, and by 1910 he had published thirteen papers on optics
, astronomy
, and spectroscopy
. Fully ten of these papers (some of fundamental importance) appeared in 1904-1905.
, Applied Optics and Optical Design, that his optical work during these years led to "a large number of new types of telescopic, microscopic, and photographic lens systems...followed during the great war by the design of most of the new forms of submarine
periscope
s and of some other Service instruments." The success of this work led to his appointment in 1917 to the principal teaching post of the newly-founded Technical Optics Department at the Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine in London
, a position he occupied until 1931.
Conrady's teaching proved seminal, since he was able to take the arcane and rather disorganized discipline of optical design and establish it on a systematic, didactic basis, applying many of his newly devised procedures and theoretical insights, e.g., the doctrine of the optical path length (OPL) and optical path difference (OPD), which he had published during the period from 1904 to 1920. Many important optical designers of the 20th century—most notably his son-in-law, Rudolf Kingslake
, as well as his eldest daughter, Hilda Conrady Kingslake--received his instruction and utilized his methods.
, along with his own ill health, prevented Conrady from finishing the work. He died in 1944 at the age of 78. His younger daughter, Irene, carefully preserved his manuscript and other unpublished papers until after the war. It finally fell to Hilda Conrady Kingslake and her husband Rudolf Kingslake
to edit and complete the manuscript, which they published as Applied Optics and Optical Design, part two (Dover, 1960).
Conrady was a fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society
, the Royal Microscopical Society
, the Quekett Club, and Royal Photographic Society
. This last awarded him its Traill-Taylor Medal in 1920. He also published a book entitled, Photography as a Scientific Implement, (New York, 1923).
Burscheid
Burscheid is a town in the Rheinisch-Bergischer district, in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. The town is known for its sub-communities and the town centre with its marketplace and churches....
, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
– June 16, 1944 in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
) was an eminent optical designer, academician, and text-book author.
Ancestry
The Conrady family had long lived in Germany near the border with the NetherlandsNetherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
, as A.E. Conrady records in an autobiographical account, augmented and published by his daughter Hilda Conrady Kingslake. His paternal male ancestors from at least the 17th century up to the time of his father had been headmasters in the school of the town of Uedem
Uedem
Uedem is a municipality in the district of Cleves, in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is located near the border to the Netherlands.-Division of the town:Uedem consists of 4 districts* Uedem* Uedemerfeld* Keppeln* Uedemerbruch-History:...
. His father after beginning in that profession, turned to private business and the establishment of factories in the textile trade.
The family name had originally employed the Germanic spelling of "Conradi." This was later altered—perhaps in the 18th century—to Conradij in comformance to Dutch spelling, and A.E. Conrady himself employed this form of the name until World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
.
Conrady knew less about his maternal ancestors, though he mentions that his maternal grandfather had been a distiller by the name of Scriverius, and that his mother (Mathilde) had been educated in his paternal grandfather's school, and then sent to a finishing school in the upper Rhine region for a year. His father acted as music teacher to his mother and they were later married in 1859, whereupon they settled in Burscheid
Burscheid
Burscheid is a town in the Rheinisch-Bergischer district, in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. The town is known for its sub-communities and the town centre with its marketplace and churches....
, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, where his father had obtained the headmastership of a local school.
Early life and education
Here A.E. Conrady was born in 1866. After attending school in BurscheidBurscheid
Burscheid is a town in the Rheinisch-Bergischer district, in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. The town is known for its sub-communities and the town centre with its marketplace and churches....
and Barmen
Barmen
Barmen is a former industrial metropolis of the region of Bergisches Land, Germany, which in 1929 with four other towns was merged with the city of Wuppertal, North Rhine-Westphalia. Barmen was the birth-place of Friedrich Engels and together with the neighbouring town of Elberfeld founded the...
, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, he proceeded to Bonn University in 1884, where he studied science and mathematics under such eminent instructors as Rudolf Lipschitz
Rudolf Lipschitz
Rudolf Otto Sigismund Lipschitz was a German mathematician and professor at the University of Bonn from 1864. Peter Gustav Dirichlet was his teacher. He supervised the early work of Felix Klein....
, Rudolf Clausius
Rudolf Clausius
Rudolf Julius Emanuel Clausius , was a German physicist and mathematician and is considered one of the central founders of the science of thermodynamics. By his restatement of Sadi Carnot's principle known as the Carnot cycle, he put the theory of heat on a truer and sounder basis...
, Eduard Schönfeld
Eduard Schönfeld
Eduard Schönfeld was a German astronomer.-Education:Schönfeld was born at Hildburghausen, in the Duchy of Saxe-Meiningen, where he had a distinguished career at the gymnasium. On leaving the gymnasium, he desired to devote himself to astronomy, but abandoned the idea in deference to his father's...
, and August Kekulé. In 1886, his father persuaded him to leave the university and sent him to England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
to act as his agent with Stanfield, Brown and Co., learning how to set up button-sewing machines so that he might then return to Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
and supervise their erection there.
In 1887, Conrady returned to Bonn
Bonn
Bonn is the 19th largest city in Germany. Located in the Cologne/Bonn Region, about 25 kilometres south of Cologne on the river Rhine in the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, it was the capital of West Germany from 1949 to 1990 and the official seat of government of united Germany from 1990 to 1999....
. He worked with the organic chemist, Otto Wallach
Otto Wallach
Otto Wallach was a German chemist and recipient of the 1910 Nobel prize in Chemistry for his work on alicyclic compounds.-Biography:...
, who later won a Nobel Prize
Nobel Prize
The Nobel Prizes are annual international awards bestowed by Scandinavian committees in recognition of cultural and scientific advances. The will of the Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, established the prizes in 1895...
in 1910. Conrady published his first two scientific papers (on chemistry) during this period.
Emigration to England
Conrady's health was always rather delicate; and already in his early twenties, as his daughter Hilda records, he had suffered several health "breakdowns." These in conjunction with "a growing distaste for the existing German regime"--i.e. the militaristic German EmpireGerman Empire
The German Empire refers to Germany during the "Second Reich" period from the unification of Germany and proclamation of Wilhelm I as German Emperor on 18 January 1871, to 1918, when it became a federal republic after defeat in World War I and the abdication of the Emperor, Wilhelm II.The German...
under the Hohenzollern Kaisers—led him to abandon an academic career in Germany for travel and residence abroad. At the behest of George W. Brown of Stanfield, Brown and Co., Conrady travelled to North America
North America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
and then in 1896 to South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
. Business ventures of his own in the manufacture of electrical equipment and model-making did not succeed, but by way of them in the 1890s he found his ultimate calling in the study of microscope and telescope optics, at first as a diversion and hobby.
Conrady finally settled in England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, where he married Annie Bunney in 1901 and became a naturalized citizen in 1902. His daughter, Hilda, records that he "remained to the end a loyal and almost fanatically devoted citizen of his adopted country." During this period he finally abandoned his business ventures and went to work for Messrs. W. Watson and Son as a scientific adviser and lens designer. And the first of his four daughters was soon born. Perhaps as a result of this career-change and new-found domestic happiness, his bibliographic output increased dramatically, and by 1910 he had published thirteen papers on optics
Optics
Optics is the branch of physics which involves the behavior and properties of light, including its interactions with matter and the construction of instruments that use or detect it. Optics usually describes the behavior of visible, ultraviolet, and infrared light...
, astronomy
Astronomy
Astronomy is a natural science that deals with the study of celestial objects and phenomena that originate outside the atmosphere of Earth...
, and spectroscopy
Spectroscopy
Spectroscopy is the study of the interaction between matter and radiated energy. Historically, spectroscopy originated through the study of visible light dispersed according to its wavelength, e.g., by a prism. Later the concept was expanded greatly to comprise any interaction with radiative...
. Fully ten of these papers (some of fundamental importance) appeared in 1904-1905.
Work in optical design
Conrady himself records in the preface to his magnum opusMasterpiece
Masterpiece in modern usage refers to a creation that has been given much critical praise, especially one that is considered the greatest work of a person's career or to a work of outstanding creativity, skill or workmanship....
, Applied Optics and Optical Design, that his optical work during these years led to "a large number of new types of telescopic, microscopic, and photographic lens systems...followed during the great war by the design of most of the new forms of submarine
Submarine
A submarine is a watercraft capable of independent operation below the surface of the water. It differs from a submersible, which has more limited underwater capability...
periscope
Periscope
A periscope is an instrument for observation from a concealed position. In its simplest form it consists of a tube with mirrors at each end set parallel to each other at a 45-degree angle....
s and of some other Service instruments." The success of this work led to his appointment in 1917 to the principal teaching post of the newly-founded Technical Optics Department at the Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, a position he occupied until 1931.
Conrady's teaching proved seminal, since he was able to take the arcane and rather disorganized discipline of optical design and establish it on a systematic, didactic basis, applying many of his newly devised procedures and theoretical insights, e.g., the doctrine of the optical path length (OPL) and optical path difference (OPD), which he had published during the period from 1904 to 1920. Many important optical designers of the 20th century—most notably his son-in-law, Rudolf Kingslake
Rudolf Kingslake
Rudolf Kingslake was an eminent academician, lens designer, and engineer.Rudolf Kingslake was born in London, England in 1903. He studied optical design at the Imperial College of Science and Technology, under eminent optical designer and theoretician Alexander Eugen Conrady, and earned a Masters...
, as well as his eldest daughter, Hilda Conrady Kingslake--received his instruction and utilized his methods.
Applied Optics
By 1929, Conrady had published twenty-nine scientific papers, most of them relating to optical design. These along with his decade of university teaching and about 35 years of practical experience in optical design and manufacture led to the publication of his most important work, a book laying out the systematic basis for the practical design of all kinds of optical instruments: Applied Optics and Optical Design, (Oxford UP, 1929). The book became a classic—widely used and referred to—and although its computational methods have been totally superseded by modern computer "ray-tracing" lens-design programs, its theoretical and mathematical insights remain valid and the book continues in print today.Final years and death
Subsequently, Conrady planned and partially wrote a second volume. But the disruptions of life in London during World War IIWorld War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, along with his own ill health, prevented Conrady from finishing the work. He died in 1944 at the age of 78. His younger daughter, Irene, carefully preserved his manuscript and other unpublished papers until after the war. It finally fell to Hilda Conrady Kingslake and her husband Rudolf Kingslake
Rudolf Kingslake
Rudolf Kingslake was an eminent academician, lens designer, and engineer.Rudolf Kingslake was born in London, England in 1903. He studied optical design at the Imperial College of Science and Technology, under eminent optical designer and theoretician Alexander Eugen Conrady, and earned a Masters...
to edit and complete the manuscript, which they published as Applied Optics and Optical Design, part two (Dover, 1960).
Conrady was a fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society
Royal Astronomical Society
The Royal Astronomical Society is a learned society that began as the Astronomical Society of London in 1820 to support astronomical research . It became the Royal Astronomical Society in 1831 on receiving its Royal Charter from William IV...
, the Royal Microscopical Society
Royal Microscopical Society
The Royal Microscopical Society is an international scientific society for the promotion of microscopy. RMS draws members from all over the world and is dedicated to advancing science, developing careers and supporting wider understanding of science and microscopy through its Science and Society...
, the Quekett Club, and Royal Photographic Society
Royal Photographic Society
The Royal Photographic Society is the world's oldest national photographic society. It was founded in London, United Kingdom in 1853 as The Photographic Society of London with the objective of promoting the Art and Science of Photography...
. This last awarded him its Traill-Taylor Medal in 1920. He also published a book entitled, Photography as a Scientific Implement, (New York, 1923).
Works by Conrady
- A.E. Conrady, Applied Optics and Optical Design, (Oxford, 1929; reprinted as "part one" Dover, 1958).
- A.E. Conrady and R. Kingslake, Applied Optics and Optical Design, part two (Dover, 1960).
Articles
- L.C. Martin, "Alexander Eugen Conrady" in Observatory 65 (1944), p. 247.
- R. Kingslake, "Alexander Eugen Conrady" in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 105, no. 2 (1945), p. 67-68.
- R. Kingslake and H. G. Kingslake, "Alexander Eugen Conrady, 1866-1944" in Applied Optics 5, no. 1 (January, 1966), pp. 176–178.
External links
- University of Rochester Press Releases at www.rochester.edu
- http://www.optics.rochester.edu/~stroud/BookHTML/ChapI_pdf/I_06.pdf