If a single lens can form an image, why does our camera have several elements? A curious child, Rudolf Kingslake inquired of his father the answer to this question nearly one hundred years ago, foreshadowing his remarkablecareer in optics and his future influence on a newly formed branch of science. Born in 1903, at the beginning of the era of technological progress, Kinglake graduated from the Imperial College in London and was offered a positionon...