Guang Xue 光學:附視學諸器圖説 [Optics: With Illustrations of Instruments of Vision]

Numerous in-text illustrations. Guang Xue 2 juan, Tu Shuo 1 juan in two volumes. Tall 8vo(29x17.3cm), orig wrappers. No publication information; according to WorldCat, published by the Jiangnan Arsenal (江南製造總局), Shanghai, ca. 1875.

Guang Xue represents one of the most important milestones in the introduction of modern Western physical science to China. Based on John Tyndall’s 1869 lectures on optics, the work was translated by Karl Traugott Kreyer (金楷理), a German-born missionary of the American Baptist Mission, and annotated by Zhao Yuanyi (趙元益), a Juren (provincial graduate) of the Guangxu reign and a translator at the Jiangnan Arsenal. The text is divided into two volumes comprising 502 sections, systematically presenting both geometrical optics and wave optics—the latter appearing here for the first time in a Chinese work.

The first part, devoted to geometrical optics, explains the rectilinear propagation of light, pinhole imaging, shadows, illumination, velocity and aberration of light, reflection, image formation in mirrors, and the optical principles of the human eye and vision. The section on wave optics introduces the revolutionary nineteenth-century theories of light waves, color, spectra and their applications, diffraction, interference, and polarization—concepts entirely new to Chinese readers at the time.

Of particular importance is the work’s introduction of the “ether theory” (傳光氣), describing ether as a universal, massless medium for the propagation of light—an idea that originated in ancient Greek philosophy and was revived in seventeenth-century Europe to explain electromagnetic and gravitational phenomena.

The appended Illustrated Treatise on Instruments of Vision, translated by Kreyer and supplemented by Zhao Yuanyi, provides detailed diagrams and explanations of optical instruments such as prisms, lenses, mirrors, concave and convex reflectors, microscopes, telescopes, solar microscopes, and camera obscuras, illustrating their structure, optical principles, and practical applications.

As one of the major products of the Jiangnan Arsenal’s translation program, Optics stands as a landmark work in the dissemination of nineteenth-century Western optical science in China.

Wrappers slightly soiled and worn; some foxing. Occasional water stains, particularly along the lower edge of volume II.

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