Thank You, Over and Out
This is my last editorial as your editor. I thank you all for
the opportunity that you have afforded me during the last
seven years to be your editor. It has been an interesting
time for us all in optical science and engineering as the
field has developed into a discipline that provides en-
abling technologies to a wide variety of current and future
devices and systems. For me it was a great opportunity to
serve this discipline that has been a part of my profes-
sional life for well over 40 years. The editorship has
brought together two aspects of that life—research and
teaching. Research and development results need to be
communicated and shared in an authoritative way so that
we can all learn of the progress of our collective endeav-
ors and apply those results to our own work no matter
where that is in the total spectrum of optical science and
engineering. Hence the need for, and the role of, your
refereed journal Optical Engineering.

I thank all those who have contributed to the success of
the journal; authors, reviewers, guest editors, editorial
staff in Bellingham, and perhaps the most important
group—the readers. Without that support the editor is
nothing! One group that has also been important have
been ‘‘the correspondents.’’ The feedback and construc-
tive comments and suggestions of this group have been
most helpful. Of course, all these groups that have been
supportive are individuals who fulfill a variety of roles

across the set of groups; authors are reviewers, readers are
authors, etc. I am confident that Don O’Shea will receive
the same level of support that I have enjoyed as he con-
tinues to move the journal forward as the major interna-
tional journal.

You will have noticed that I used the phrase ‘‘the dis-
cipline of optical science and engineering.’’ I believe it is
a discipline in its own right, but if you don’t like that idea
then I am sure that you will agree that there is an inte-
grated body of knowledge that constitutes optical sciences
and engineering. I have always believed that technology
is the embodiment of known science ~true in the Stone
Age and true today!. Engineering is then the integrated
use of that known science and technology into devices
and systems that can be used to solve current problems
and make our world a better and safer place to live in.

So I close by rewriting Ralph Waldo Emerson ~with
my apology!!.

‘‘Good-bye, proud journal! I’m going home:
Thou art my friend, and I am thine’’

Over and Out,

Brian J. Thompson
Editor

Editorial

3233Optical Engineering, Vol. 36 No. 12, December 1997
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