Optics Lessons: Part 1 - What is Optics

Mankind has always been fascinated with light, thinking of it in ancient times as an uncontrollable, mystical force of nature. Science unraveled some of its mysteries as the inventions of mirrors, spectacles, and later microscopes and telescopes revealed to mankind how light can be tailored to help people in their daily lives and in exploration, physically through the world and intellectually through science.

Optics is the study of light and vision in science and engineering. Light is generally defined as the sector of the electromagnetic spectrum between the infrared and ultraviolet sectors that can be seen with the unaided eye.

Optics plays an influential role in our lives:

When you look into a mirror in the morning to comb your hair, when you see a rainbow after it rains, in medical devices that save lives, as you read this page, as you see, optics is at work.

Through these lessons, we hope to give you at least a peek
into geometrical optics;
into physical optics;
into the dual nature of light and past and current theories on it;
into lenses and mirrors;
into optical instruments;
into experiments that led to breakthroughs in the study of optics;
into how optics affects our daily lives and how it will affect the future.

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