title: Applied Optics Golden Anniversary commemorative reviews: introduction.
abstract: Applied Optics presents three special issues to end its retrospective of Applied Optics' 50 years. The special issues are interference, interferometry, and phase; imaging, optical processing, and telecommunications; and polarization and scattering. The issues, which contain 19 commemorative reviews from some of the journal's luminaries, are summarized.
authors.affiliation: U.S. Army Research Laboratory, RDRL-SER, 2800 Powder Mill Road, Adelphi, Maryland 20783, USA. joseph.n.mait2.civ@mail.mil
authors.forename: Joseph N
authors.initials: JN
authors.lastname: Mait
authors.forename: Eugenio
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Mendez
authors.forename: Nasser
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Peyghambarian
authors.forename: T-C
authors.initials: TC
authors.lastname: Poon