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Article

Physical Limits to the Performance of Imaging Systems

SEP 01, 1989
A half‐century of electronic imaging technology has begun to match and even surpass the performance of the eye, an amazingly sophisticated photon detector perfected by evolution.
Albert Rose
Paul K. Weimer

Our visual system provides our principal contact with the world around us. This system, thanks to millions of years of natural development, achieved a high degree of perfection long before humans arrived on the scene. To attain such perfection, these evolutionary processes had to recognize the quantum nature of light—a remarkable accomplishment.

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More about the authors

Albert Rose, Chronar Corporation, Princeton, New Jersey.

Paul K. Weimer, RCA David Sarnoff Research Center, Princeton.

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This Content Appeared In
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Volume 42, Number 9

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