Photometria

Content of Photometria

Written in Latin, the title of the book is a word Lambert devised from the Greek: φῶς, φωτς (transliterated phôs, photos) = light and μετρια (transliterated metria) = measure. Lambert’s word has found its way into European languages as photometry, photometrie, fotometria. Photometria was the first work to accurately identify most fundamental photometric concepts, to assemble them into a coherent system of photometric quantities, to define these quantities with a precision sufficient for mathematical statement, and to build from them a system of photometric principles. These concepts, quantities, and principles are still in use today.

Lambert began with two simple axioms: light travels in a straight line in a uniform medium and rays that cross do not interact. Like Kepler before him, he recognized that "laws" of photometry are simply consequences and follow directly from these two assumptions. In this way Photometria demonstrated (rather than assumed) that

1. Illuminance varies inversely as the square of the distance from a point source of light,
2. Illuminance on a surface varies as the cosine of the incidence angle measured from the surface perpendicular, and
3. Light decays exponentially in an absorbing medium.

In addition, Lambert postulated a surface that emits light (either as a source or by reflection) in a way such that the density of emitted light (luminous intensity) varies as the cosine of the angle measured from the surface perpendicular. In the case of a reflecting surface, this form of emission is assumed to be the case, regardless of the light's incident direction. Such surfaces are now referred to as "Perfectly Diffuse" or "Lambertian". See: Lambertian reflectance, Lambertian emitter

Lambert demonstrated these principles in the only way available at the time: by contriving often ingenious optical arrangements that could make two immediately adjacent luminous fields appear equally bright (something that could only be determined by visual observation), when two physical quantities that produced the two fields were unequal by some specific amount (things that could be directly measured, such as angle or distance). In this way, Lambert quantified purely visual properties (such as luminous power, illumination, transparency, reflectivity) by relating them to physical parameters (such as distance, angle, radiant power, and color). Today, this is known as "visual photometry." Lambert was among the first to accompany experimental measurements with estimates of uncertainties based on a theory of errors and what he experimentally determined as the limits of visual assessment.

Although previous workers had pronounced photometric laws 1 and 3, Lambert established the second and added the concept of perfectly diffuse surfaces. But more importantly, as Anding pointed out in his German translation of Photometria, "Lambert had incomparably clearer ideas about photometry" and with them established a complete system of photometric quantities. Based on the three laws of photometry and the supposition of perfectly diffuse surfaces, Photometria developed and demonstrated the following:

1. Just noticeable differences 2. Reflectance and transmittance of glass and other common materials 3. Luminous radiative transfer between surface 4. Brightness and pupil size 5. Atmospheric refraction and absorption 6. Astronomic photometry 7. Demonstration of additive color mixing and colorimetry 8. Daylighting calculations

Nature of Photometria

Lambert's book is fundamentally experimental. The forty experiments described in Photometria were conducted by Lambert between 1755 and 1760, after he decided to write a treatise on light measurement. His interest in acquiring experimental data spanned several fields: optics, thermometry, pyrometry, hydrometry, and magnetics. This interest in experimental data and its analysis, so evident in Photometria, is also present in other articles and books Lambert produced. For his optics work, extremely limited equipment sufficed: a few panes of glass, convex and concave lenses, mirrors, prisms, paper and cardboard, pigments, candles and the means to measure distances and angles.

Lambert's book is also mathematical. Though he knew that the physical nature of light was unknown (it would be 150 years before the wave-particle duality was established) he was certain that light's interaction with materials and its effect on vision could be quantified. Mathematics was for Lambert not only indispensable for this quantification but also the indisputable sign of rigor. He used linear algebra and calculus extensively with a matter-of-fact confidence that was uncommon in optical works of the time. On this basis, Photometria is certainly uncharacteristic of mid-18th century works.

Writing and publishing of Photometria

Lambert began conducting photometric experiments in 1755 and by August 1757 had enough material to begin writing. From the references in Photometria and the catalogue of his library auctioned after his death, it is clear that Lambert consulted the optical works of Newton, Bouguer, Euler, Huygens, Smith, and Kästner. He finished Photometria in Augsburg in February 1760 and the printer had the book available by June 1760.

Maria Jakobina Klett (1709–1795) was owner of Eberhard Klett Verlag, one of the most important Augsburg “Protestant publishers.” She published many technical books, including Lambert’s Photometria, and 10 of his other works. Klett used Christoph Peter Detleffsen (1731–1774) to print Photometria. Its first and only printing was evidently small, and within 10 years copies were difficult to obtain. In Joseph Priestley's survey of optics of 1772, “Lambert’s Photometrie” appears in the list of books not yet procured. Priestley makes a specific reference to Photometria; that it was an important book but unprocurable.

An abridged German translation of Photometria appeared in 1892, a French translation in 1997, and an English translation in 2000.

Later influence

Photometria presented significant advances and it was, perhaps, for that very reason that its appearance was greeted with general indifference. The central optical question in the middle of the 18th century was: what is the nature of light? Lambert work was not related to this issue at all and so Photometria received no immediate systematic evaluation, and was not incorporated into the mainstream of optical science. The first appraisal of Photometria appeared in 1776 in Georg Klügel’s German translation of Priestley’s 1772 survey of optics. An elaborate reworking and annotation appeared in 1777. Photometria was not seriously evaluated and utilized until nearly a century after its publication, when the science of astronomy and the commerce of gas lighting had need for photometry. Fifty years after that, Illuminating Engineering took up Lambert's results as the basis for lighting calculations that accompanied the great expanse of lighting early in the 20th century. Fifty years after that, computer graphics took up Lambert's results as the basis for radiosity calculations required to produce architectural renderings. Photometria had significant, though long delayed influence on technology and commerce once the industrial revolution was well underway, and is the reason that it was one of book listed in Printing and the Mind of Man.