What can optical engineers learn from Leonardo?

Abstract

Optics in general is an old science. Many brilliant researchers have created both theory and practice in this field. Some of their achievements are still in use, some are unjustly forgotten. In this paper we tried to rethink some points of ancient scientists to show that they had «seeds» which are still important ourdays. In particular, the applicability of the "golden section" from nature to the modern, computational process of optical system design was tested experimentally. Design principles, current challenges, possible solutions and some applications are discussed. They could be used, for example, in optical design, at the stage of starting scheme or help making decision of optical system producibility.