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Optics is the 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. [1] Optics usually describes the behaviour of visible, ultraviolet, and infrared light.
Visulization of flux through differential area and solid angle. As always ^ is the unit normal to the incident surface A, = ^, and ^ is a unit vector in the direction of incident flux on the area element, θ is the angle between them.
Lectures on Theoretical Physics is a six-volume series of physics textbooks translated from Arnold Sommerfeld's classic German texts Vorlesungen über Theoretische Physik. The series includes the volumes Mechanics , Mechanics of Deformable Bodies , Electrodynamics , Optics , Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics , and Partial Differential ...
Principles of Optics, colloquially known as Born and Wolf, is an optics textbook written by Max Born and Emil Wolf that was initially published in 1959 by Pergamon Press. [1] After going through six editions with Pergamon Press, the book was transferred to Cambridge University Press who issued an expanded seventh edition in 1999. [ 2 ]
Optics is a broad subject area. Much of the content is covered in subcategories. Many basic concepts are covered in Category:Geometrical optics, in which light is considered as if it were composed of rays. Articles dealing with the wave nature of light can be found in Category:Physical optics.
A basic distinction is between isotropic materials, which exhibit the same properties regardless of the direction of the light, and anisotropic ones, which exhibit different properties when light passes through them in different directions. The optical properties of matter can lead to a variety of interesting optical phenomena.
It corresponds to the beam parameter product (BPP) in Gaussian beam optics. Other names for etendue include acceptance, throughput, light grasp, light-gathering power, optical extent, [1] and the AΩ product. Throughput and AΩ product are especially used in radiometry and radiative transfer where it is related to the view factor (or shape factor).
Physical optics is also the name of an approximation commonly used in optics, electrical engineering and applied physics. In this context, it is an intermediate method between geometric optics, which ignores wave effects, and full wave electromagnetism, which is a precise theory.