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Rays and wavefronts. In optics, a ray is an idealized geometrical model of light or other electromagnetic radiation, obtained by choosing a curve that is perpendicular to the wavefronts of the actual light, and that points in the direction of energy flow.
Geometrical optics, or ray optics, is a model of optics that describes light propagation in terms of rays. The ray in geometrical optics is an abstraction useful for approximating the paths along which light propagates under certain circumstances. The simplifying assumptions of geometrical optics include that light rays:
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. Historically, the ray-based model of light was developed first, followed by the wave model of light.
Ray tracing of a beam of light passing through a medium with changing refractive index.The ray is advanced by a small amount, and then the direction is re-calculated. Ray tracing works by assuming that the particle or wave can be modeled as a large number of very narrow beams (), and that there exists some distance, possibly very small, over which such a ray is locally straight.
A light ray enters a component crossing its input plane at a distance x 1 from the optical axis, traveling in a direction that makes an angle θ 1 with the optical axis. After propagation to the output plane that ray is found at a distance x 2 from the optical axis and at an angle θ 2 with respect to it.
Gaussian beam width () as a function of the axial distance .: beam waist; : confocal parameter; : Rayleigh length; : total angular spread In optics and especially laser science, the Rayleigh length or Rayleigh range, , is the distance along the propagation direction of a beam from the waist to the place where the area of the cross section is doubled. [1]
In Cartesian physics, light was the sensation of pressure emitted by surrounding objects that sought to move, as transmitted through the rotatory motion of material corpuscles. [8] These views extended to Isaac Newton 's corpuscular theory of light , [ 9 ] and would be adopted by John Locke and other the 18th-century luminaries.
Diffuse reflection is the reflection of light or other waves or particles from a surface such that a ray incident on the surface is scattered at many angles rather than at just one angle as in the case of specular reflection.