enow.com Web Search

Search results

  1. Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
  2. Geometrical optics - Wikipedia

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geometrical_optics

    Geometrical optics. 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: may ...

  3. Ray (optics) - Wikipedia

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_(optics)

    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. [1][2] Rays are used to model the propagation of light through an optical system, by dividing the real light ...

  4. History of optics - Wikipedia

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_optics

    History of optics. Modern ophthalmic lens making machine. Optics began with the development of lenses by the ancient Egyptians and Mesopotamians, followed by theories on light and vision developed by ancient Greek philosophers, and the development of geometrical optics in the Greco-Roman world. The word optics is derived from the Greek term ...

  5. Hamiltonian optics - Wikipedia

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamiltonian_optics

    Hamilton's principle. In physics, Hamilton's principle states that the evolution of a system described by generalized coordinates between two specified states at two specified parameters σA and σB is a stationary point (a point where the variation is zero) of the action functional, or where and is the Lagrangian.

  6. Distortion (optics) - Wikipedia

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distortion_(optics)

    In geometric optics, distortion is a deviation from rectilinear projection; a projection in which straight lines in a scene remain straight in an image.It is a form of optical aberration that may be distinguished from other aberrations such as spherical aberration, coma, chromatic aberration, field curvature, and astigmatism in a sense that these impact the image sharpness without changing an ...

  7. Euclid's Optics - Wikipedia

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euclid's_Optics

    Optics (Greek: Ὀπτικά) is a work on the geometry of vision written by the Greek mathematician Euclid around 300 BC. The earliest surviving manuscript of Optics is in Greek and dates from the 10th century AD. The work deals almost entirely with the geometry of vision, with little reference to either the physical or psychological aspects ...

  8. Eikonal equation - Wikipedia

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eikonal_equation

    In geometric optics, the eikonal equation describes the phase fronts of waves. Under reasonable hypothesis on the "initial" data, the eikonal equation admits a local solution, but a global smooth solution (e.g. a solution for all time in the geometrical optics case) is not possible. The reason is that caustics may develop. In the geometrical ...

  9. Principles of Optics - Wikipedia

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principles_of_Optics

    Principles of Optics. 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 ...