A report on Ray (optics) and Physical optics

$Diagram of rays at a surface, where is the angle of refraction.$

$Physical optics is used to explain effects such as diffraction$

Simple ray diagram showing typical chief and marginal rays

Ray optics or geometrical optics does not describe phenomena such as diffraction, which require wave optics theory.

- Ray (optics)

The word "physical" means that it is more physical than geometric or ray optics and not that it is an exact physical theory.

- Physical optics

$Diagram of rays at a surface, where is the angle of refraction.$

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Optics

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Branch of physics that studies the behaviour and properties of light, including its interactions with matter and the construction of instruments that use or detect it.

Alhazen (Ibn al-Haytham), "the father of Optics"

$Reproduction of a page of Ibn Sahl's manuscript showing his knowledge of the law of refraction.$

The first treatise about optics by Johannes Kepler, Ad Vitellionem paralipomena quibus astronomiae pars optica traditur (1604)

Cover of the first edition of Newton's Opticks (1704)

$Geometry of reflection and refraction of light rays$

Illustration of Snell's Law for the case n1 < n2, such as air/water interface

A ray tracing diagram for a converging lens.

Images of black letters in a thin convex lens of focal length f are shown in red. Selected rays are shown for letters E, I and K in blue, green and orange, respectively. Note that E (at 2f) has an equal-size, real and inverted image; I (at f) has its image at infinity; and K (at f/2) has a double-size, virtual and upright image.

When oil or fuel is spilled, colourful patterns are formed by thin-film interference.

Conceptual animation of light dispersion through a prism. High frequency (blue) light is deflected the most, and low frequency (red) the least.

Dispersion: two sinusoids propagating at different speeds make a moving interference pattern. The red dot moves with the phase velocity, and the green dots propagate with the group velocity. In this case, the phase velocity is twice the group velocity. The red dot overtakes two green dots, when moving from the left to the right of the figure. In effect, the individual waves (which travel with the phase velocity) escape from the wave packet (which travels with the group velocity).

A polariser changing the orientation of linearly polarised light. In this picture, θ1 – θ0 = θi.

The effects of a polarising filter on the sky in a photograph. Left picture is taken without polariser. For the right picture, filter was adjusted to eliminate certain polarizations of the scattered blue light from the sky.

Experiments such as this one with high-power lasers are part of the modern optics research.

Model of a human eye. Features mentioned in this article are 1. vitreous humour 3. ciliary muscle, 6. pupil, 7. anterior chamber, 8. cornea, 10. lens cortex, 22. optic nerve, 26. fovea, 30. retina

The Ponzo Illusion relies on the fact that parallel lines appear to converge as they approach infinity.

Illustrations of various optical instruments from the 1728 Cyclopaedia

A colourful sky is often due to scattering of light off particulates and pollution, as in this photograph of a sunset during the October 2007 California wildfires.

The most common of these, geometric optics, treats light as a collection of rays that travel in straight lines and bend when they pass through or reflect from surfaces.

Physical optics is a more comprehensive model of light, which includes wave effects such as diffraction and interference that cannot be accounted for in geometric optics.