Above all, she values diligence, integrity and a sense of humor, of course!
I'm kidding. Abbe 'values' or 'numbers' have no units but are ratios that describe a lens material's constringence or propensity for dispersion of light and chromatic aberration. The higher the abbe number, the more transparent the lens material is, generally. And unless you're an optical scientist or physics geek, you probably won't appreciate the excellent discourse about abbe values on wikipedia. So, what you need to understand is that for spectacle lenses, higher numbers are better than lower numbers, 60 being about as high as possible in some Crown glass and about 30 in most polycarbonate lenses. CR.39 (up to about +or-1.25) and Trivex (up to about +or-4.0) are excellent optical choices for most spectacle lenses and have abbe values of 58 and 43, respectively. I did say "about"....
The problem with materials that have highest abbe values, is that they are also the lens materials with the greatest weight and least resistance to impact. It is my opinion that, at this time, Trivex and Tribrid offer the best combination of qualities to make most spectacle lenses from.
I'm kidding. Abbe 'values' or 'numbers' have no units but are ratios that describe a lens material's constringence or propensity for dispersion of light and chromatic aberration. The higher the abbe number, the more transparent the lens material is, generally. And unless you're an optical scientist or physics geek, you probably won't appreciate the excellent discourse about abbe values on wikipedia. So, what you need to understand is that for spectacle lenses, higher numbers are better than lower numbers, 60 being about as high as possible in some Crown glass and about 30 in most polycarbonate lenses. CR.39 (up to about +or-1.25) and Trivex (up to about +or-4.0) are excellent optical choices for most spectacle lenses and have abbe values of 58 and 43, respectively. I did say "about"....
The problem with materials that have highest abbe values, is that they are also the lens materials with the greatest weight and least resistance to impact. It is my opinion that, at this time, Trivex and Tribrid offer the best combination of qualities to make most spectacle lenses from.
The header image is Vincent Van Gogh's "Irises". He was a fair slinger of paint.
