Q&A
Reflections on a ‘Jewel’
The editor of a new book of essays celebrating the 75th anniversary of the Institute of Optics discusses one of the University’s landmark programs. Interview by Scott Hauser
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| GROUNDBREAKING: Charles Munnerlyn ’69 (PhD) and Stephen Fantone ’79 (PhD), both cochairs of the fundraising committee for a building to house optics and biomedical engineering; Tom LeBlanc, dean of the College faculty; Wayne Knox, director of the Institute of Optics; President Jackson; Richard Waugh, professor and chair of biomedical engineering; and Kevin Parker, dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, share the honors of breaking ground for the new building during last fall’s Meliora Weekend. (Photo by Deron Berkhof for University Public Relations) |
Over the past year or so, Carlos Stroud has spent a lot of time rummaging around in the attic of Bausch & Lomb Hall, the building where the Institute of Optics had its first home on the River Campus. During his “field research,” the professor of optics and director of the Center for Quantum Information has found a prototype for a night-vision telescope, a signaling beacon that reflects ultraviolet light, and several other examples of innovative technology developed by faculty and researchers from the Institute.
But he’s also discovered a new appreciation for the place where he has spent 35 years of his academic life. That appreciation is evident in the new book, A Jewel in the Crown, a collection of essays edited by Stroud and published by the Meliora Press imprint of the University of Rochester Press.
The book, released last fall to coincide with Meliora Weekend, the groundbreaking for the new biomedical engineering and optics building, and the Institute’s hosting of the 88th annual conference of the Optical Society of America, commemorates the 75th anniversary of the Institute’s founding in 1929.
Relatively speaking, the Institute has always been a small program.
Why has it been so influential?
For a large percentage of its life, the Institute had only three faculty members.
Since 1969, when I came here, it’s generally had 12 full-time faculty
members. We’re up to 16 now, which is the largest ever.
It’s kind of amazing what has been done with so few faculty members,
but part of the reason for the Institute’s influence is its uniqueness.
Until the mid-1960s, it was the only program in optics in the United States.
But the other part of the reason is that it was set up with some special obligations.
Both Eastman Kodak and Bausch & Lomb contributed significant amounts of
money in the very early years to help set it up with the idea that it would
serve the optics industry nationally.
That’s a unique obligation as well as an unusual charge for a department within the University. After all, Rochester wasn’t a national university in 1929.
Why were Kodak and Bausch & Lomb so interested in a University
program?
Ever since there had been what we’d call an optics industry, it had been
centered in Germany. During the First World War, optics was suddenly cut off.
The German source of research and equipment was gone, so the United States,
but in particular George Eastman and Edward Bausch, realized that their companies—as
well as the U.S. military—depended too much on optics not to have a center
of training and research in the United States.
Who Was ‘Spud’?
As Stroud researched the history of the Institute of Optics, he was surprised to discover that in 1945, an enterprising author, known only as “Spud,” had written a spoof of a spy thriller centered in the Institute’s labs on the fourth floor of Bausch & Lomb Hall. Telling the story of a Nazi spy ring, a murder, and stolen documents, the typed manuscript is titled Amontillado’s Arcanum. [more]
Would you describe the Institute as a prototype for what we would now
consider an industry-university partnership?
It definitely was from the beginning. Eastman and Bausch had urged Rush Rhees
to establish a program in optics for a decade before the Institute was created.
Later, during the Second World War, optics was so important in the war effort,
that under the leadership of Brian O’Brien, it also included a government
component. During the Second World War, it was really a triad of government,
industry, and the University. Close to half of all the optics research during
the war was done here.
How important are those ties?
We wouldn’t be the same place without them. The Institute is not really
a physics department, and it’s not really an engineering department, but
it’s a mixture of both. There always has been basic research here—there
was quantum mechanics research going on at the Institute in 1929 when it wasn’t
going on in many other places—as well as industrial research.
How does the new Center for Institute Ventures fit into that history?
It’s an old tradition, but it’s always been a bit of a problem as
well, that ideas are developed here, and then they don’t always feed back
to benefit the Institute.
We were particularly having problems in the late 1990s. New Ph.D.s were getting salaries as high as their professors to work in industry. Faculty realized that their ideas were worth millions, and so some left to start their own companies.
With the Center for Institute Ventures, we’re trying to find ways that faculty won’t have to leave their positions permanently in order to start companies. There are possibilities for leaves or for doing some of their work here, and there’s the possibility of contact with venture capital through the department.
The idea is to help faculty develop new ideas and new companies without leaving the University.
Why does the book give special emphasis to the influence of the late
Rudolf and Hilda Kingslake?
They were active in the Institute for 74 years. That’s in spite of the
fact that Rudolf Kingslake was on the full-time faculty from 1929 until 1937—only
eight years. Then he went off to head Kodak’s lens design department.
But he continued teaching his course here up into the 1980s. Everyone in the
whole field of optics respected and loved Rudolf and Hilda Kingslake.
Many of the attitudes that they brought to the Institute—really caring about the students and teaching while at the same time being very interested in industrial research—set a tone that has carried throughout our history. Their character, if that’s what you would call it, is definitely imprinted on the place.
Did anything surprise you in the course of your research for the book?
I’ve been here for about half of the Institute’s history, so I knew
a lot of it. But I was certainly impressed by the breadth of other interests
that people at the Institute have had. For example, Rudolf Kingslake wrote a
symphony, and he was an ordained minister. There are many examples of people
who have very broad cultural interests.
The other thing was the extent of the Institute’s contributions during the Second World War. I hadn’t appreciated that until I really got into this.
What does the future hold for the Institute?
Right now, with the groundbreaking for the new building, there’s an enormous
amount of energy and enthusiasm in the Institute.
I don’t think I have a very good crystal ball, but I think the idea of mixing basic research and applied research in one place is very powerful.
Optics is an enabling technology. It tends to be used in all sorts of fields. Medical optics is hot right now because medical research is hot right now. Quantum computing and quantum communications also are very hot right now.
Optics is at the center of a lot of rapidly developing technologies, and it’s essential for all kinds of development. It’s hard not to be optimistic.
Everyone seems to agree that combining government, industry, and University research is needed to transition from the old smokestack industries to modern ones. That combination has been at the center of the Institute from the beginning, so it’s nice that the rest of the world is catching up with our idea.
For more information about the book, visit the Institute of Optics' Web site.
Who Was ‘Spud’?
As Stroud researched the history of the Institute of Optics, he was surprised
to discover that in 1945, an enterprising author, known only as “Spud,”
had written a spoof of a spy thriller centered in the Institute’s labs
on the fourth floor of Bausch & Lomb Hall. Telling the story of a Nazi
spy ring, a murder, and stolen documents, the typed manuscript is titled Amontillado’s
Arcanum.
The novel was deposited at Rush Rhees in 1982 and had languished in obscurity
until last year when Stroud came across it as part of his research for A
Jewel in the Crown.
Stroud says he has theories about who the author was, but his main suspects died within the past several years. He doubts a faculty member would have had the time during the war to write a novel, so he thinks the most likely person would have been an undergraduate with ties to both the Institute and to the psychology department because of the manuscript’s references to vision research.
“We still don’t know who wrote it,” Stroud says. “I’ve tried rather hard to find out who the author was, and I haven’t succeeded. It’s almost as though there were a conspiracy to keep it a secret.”
The thriller is described in one of the 75 chapters of A Jewel in the Crown. The book also includes examples of pranks, social events, and the words of a song—set to the music of Gilbert and Sullivan —written for Institute gatherings.
“I think the experience of being here comes to life in the fun that people had,” Stroud says. “You couldn’t really describe what the Institute was like without telling that part of the story.
