On the Intensity of the Light Reflected from or Transmitted through a Pile of Plates

A review of the history of the theory of the reflection of light from a pile of plates is given. The presence of incorrect formulae in some current text and reference books is noted. The formulae for a pile of absorbing plates are derived by a method different from that used by Stokes, giving the results in a form different from his. The equivalence of the two forms is proven. An upper bound to the error caused by assuming an infinite instead of a finite number of multiple reflections is derived in the Appendix.