R. Clark Jones (June 30, 1916April 26, 2004) was an American physicist working in the field of
optics
Optics is the branch of physics that studies the behaviour and properties of light, including its interactions with matter and the construction of optical instruments, instruments that use or Photodetector, detect it. Optics usually describes t ...
. He studied at
Harvard University
Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...
and received his
PhD
A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...
in 1941. He worked at
Bell Labs
Nokia Bell Labs, commonly referred to as ''Bell Labs'', is an American industrial research and development company owned by Finnish technology company Nokia. With headquarters located in Murray Hill, New Jersey, Murray Hill, New Jersey, the compa ...
until 1944, and later with the
Polaroid Corporation
Polaroid Corporation was an American company that made instant film and cameras, which survives as a brand for consumer electronics. The company was founded in 1937 by Edwin H. Land, to exploit his Polaroid (polarizer), Polaroid polarizing polyme ...
until 1982. In a sequence of publications between 1941 and 1956, he demonstrated a mathematical model to describe the polarization of coherent light, the
Jones calculus
In optics, polarized light can be described using the Jones calculus, invented by R. C. Jones in 1941. Polarized light is represented by a Jones vector, and linear optical elements are represented by ''Jones matrices''. When light crosses an opt ...
.
When
William Shurcliff wrote ''Polarized Light: Production and Use'' he praised R. C. Jones in the preface: "The author’s debt to Dr. R. Clark Jones, the inventor of the Jones calculus, is immeasurable. The sections dealing with the
Stokes vector, the
Mueller calculus, and the Jones calculus could not have been written without long and painstaking coaching by him."
[ William Shurcliff (1962) ''Polarized Light: Production and Use'', ]Harvard University Press
Harvard University Press (HUP) is an academic publishing house established on January 13, 1913, as a division of Harvard University. It is a member of the Association of University Presses. Its director since 2017 is George Andreou.
The pres ...
Publications
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See also
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Sinusoidal plane-wave solutions of the electromagnetic wave equation Polarization of classical electromagnetic waves
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Polarization (waves)
, or , is a property of transverse waves which specifies the geometrical orientation of the oscillations. In a transverse wave, the direction of the oscillation is perpendicular to the direction of motion of the wave. One example of a polariz ...
References
Further reading
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Jones, Robert Clark
20th-century American physicists
Harvard University alumni
American optical physicists
1916 births
2004 deaths
SPIE
Fellows of Optica (society)