Optics is the study of light, and its interaction with matter. It includes topics such as imaging systems, fiber optics, lasers, quantum optics, and more.
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What objects look best in an O-III filter?
I've heard that an O-III (Oxygen III) filter is great for planetary nebulae.
Is this true for all planetary nebulae, or just some or most?
What other target types are often improved with an O-III ...
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154 views
Magnification multiplication using telescope arrays?
If we have an array of telescopes attached one after another, would the resultant magnification be multiplied?Also would such a contraption be feasible to make telescopes with amazing magnification?
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1answer
59 views
Manufacturing Fresnel Lenses with Sound
I understand fresnel lenses are manufactured using CNC machines. I was wondering, if it would be possible to use sound to vibrate liquid silicon and then fast cool it into the standard form of a ...
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2answers
205 views
Is there a simple approximation to calculate the index of refraction of water?
A very rough approximation from first principles, from the elementary charge and hbar, would suffice. But is there such an approximation at all?
(Alternatively, if water is too difficult: is there ...
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106 views
May molecules of ideal gases have an inner structure?
The following question is probably very elementary:
whether molecules of ideal gases may have optic properties?
As far as I understand, when one discusses optic properties, one assumes that molecules ...
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2answers
567 views
Does a charging capacitor emit an electromagnetic wave?
Assume you charge a (parallel plate) capacitor. This establishes an electric field (the $\mathbf E$ vector points from one plate to the other) and a circular magnetic field (the $\mathbf B$ vector ...
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2answers
123 views
What shape is formed by the set of all raindrops which create a rainbow to specific observer?
What shape is formed by the set of all raindrops which create a rainbow to specific observer?
Maybe it's easier to narrow this down and consider it this in parts: what's the set of positions from ...
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2answers
1k views
What happens when you cut a biconvex lens in half?
Specifically, does the focal length change? How can this be rationalized?
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53 views
What is the sun's spectral series?
My physics book says that six colors can be distinctly seen in white light: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet. Does solar light only use these six wavelengths and mix them additively, or ...
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55 views
Hyperopia, Far Sightedness
With hyperopia, the focal point is behind the retina, shouldn't this mean that the image is flipped on the retina itself from what is usual?
I must be drawing my ray diagrams wrong.
A little ...
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1answer
120 views
Can light be canceled by merging with an inverted wave?
Can light waves be canceled by merging them with their inverted waves? Seems like it would violate conservation of energy but waves are added together when they overlap, right? Where is the flaw in ...
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3answers
343 views
Why do cameras have double lenses?
I was wonder why cameras the good ones have two lenses instead of one?
what benfit does it carry with this fact?
I have told that old cellular phones have camera with one lens and hence it blurring ...
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1answer
42 views
How much refraction occurs as a fraction of all reflection and refraction?
When light reaches a boundary between materials below the critical angle, some of it refracts and some of it reflects. For example, glass acts as a partial mirror with a dark background.
Assuming ...
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1answer
50 views
Where did this equation come from ∠I+ ∠E = ∠A+ ∠D?
∠I+ ∠E= ∠A + ∠D
Angle of incidence + angle of emergence = angle of prism (Normally 60°) + angle of deviation.
If their sum is not equal,we made personal error in doing an experiment with prism. ...
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3answers
167 views
Difference in velocity of light in change in medium
It is often seen that according to physics the light changes it's velocity according to the medium through which it is traveling. So can it be explained that why so happen?
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1answer
142 views
Solar energy and optical fiber
I'm not really good at science or physics, just wanted to ask about the idea (doesn't have an opportunity to test this).
Will this scheme work and what can be its efficiency?(The goal is to make ...
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1answer
553 views
Optical microscope magnification limits?
Optical microscopes are quoted as having a maximum magnification of 1500x to 2000x - what is this calculated from?
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3answers
510 views
Reflection of Electromagnetic Waves
Visible light - Being an Electromagnetic wave is reflected by glass (take mirror). Would all other waves in the electromagnetic spectrum be reflected in the same way by our simple mirror... For highly ...
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3answers
123 views
Electrial Conductivity of Thin Metal Films
What is the best way to find specific/electric conductivity which is dependent of very thin film thickness?
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1answer
348 views
Why do polarized sunglasses remove (most) reflections on car windows?
Why do polarized sunglasses remove (most) reflections on car windows? I know that both lenses of polarized sunglasses are polarized in the same direction and I can see that reflections in my own ...
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4answers
141 views
Light refraction and causality
One way how to look at refraction by a dielectric medium like water or glass is that (phase) velocity of light decreases because it is the wavelength rather than the frequency of the light which ...
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3answers
2k views
Clarification needed in the concept of apparent depth & real depth
I understood the concept of apparent depth from here:
But one thing I didn't understand is, will there be difference in the real depth and apparent depth when we are looking not at an angle as ...
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1answer
168 views
Extra help in Optics
I am in an optics class, and we are using the text "Introduction to Optics" third edition by Pedrotti. The book is completely useless in the course. The questions in the review section of the chapter ...
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1answer
324 views
Lens design - max lpmm, monochromatic light
How can I approach this task:
I need to design diffraction-limited lens for monochromatic light (~1nm line width, so I guess no need to correct chromatic aberrations), geometry aberrations are also ...
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2answers
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Calculating diffraction-limited resolution for a lens setup
Supposed a lens arrangement is prepared where light from an object is collimated, focused and recollimated etc. before entering a CCD array. Given that we can calculate the diffraction-limited ...
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2answers
892 views
Michelson rotating mirror experiment
Could someone explain the calculation required to answer this question. It is from a text book and the answer is recorded as 585Hz but I cannot replicate the answer.
In 1931 Michelson used a ...
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3answers
912 views
Why should optical fibers be thin?
What are the reasons that optical fibers have to be thin (small radius of the fiber)? Is there a good picture which explains this in detail?
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3answers
690 views
Reconciling refraction with particle theory and wave theory
I have searched the web for good answers to why refraction occurs when light moves from one medium to another with different density. I have limited background in physics and want to know if there is ...
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1answer
71 views
Reflections in a glass of water
I've noticed that if you take a full glass of water and look from above, through the water, you can't see through the glass sides - instead, you see a reflection. I tried with a laser pointer and the ...
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1answer
20 views
Heat deposition at optical focus in a clear medium
This is an applied physics question for an engineering problem. The well known experiment we have all done--burn paper and wood with a magnifying glass and the sun's rays. My question is, if one were ...
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33 views
Penetration of light in the atmosphere
While I was considering an answer to this question, I wondered how much light that enters the atmosphere reaches the ground without colliding with air molecules—if any. I've taken a good bit of ...
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2answers
215 views
How is the phase shift of light measured?
This may seem like a simple question, but I cant seem to make any headway.
Consider the following; I have two beams of light, a reference beam $(A=\cos(wt))$ and phase shifted beam ...
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2answers
1k views
How does Newton's 2-prism experiment help to explain why light does not get dispersed into 7-colors in a parallel glass slab?
In a real parallel glass slide(with two prisms imagined to be touching each other to form a parallel glass slide),
The ray of light should pass through the Z in between without any dispersion or ...
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1answer
322 views
Origins of the principle of least time in classical mechanics
Is it possible to derive the principle of least time from the principle of least action in lagrangian or hamiltonian mechanics? Or is Fermat's principle more fundamental than the principle of least ...
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5answers
2k views
Focal Point vs where you see the images
I am trying to figure out where is the focal point and where is the image. I read some information online about the point where you see the image is the focal point, but however, my supervisor ...
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1answer
245 views
Plenoptic camera and display
This is a two part question about the technology described here:
Lytro's light field camera lets you choose focus later
I'd love to get an explanation of the technology.
What is the ...
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3answers
492 views
Recently publicized experiment on destructive interference between two laser beams
Recently I've had several non-physicist friends ask me, independently of each other, about an experiment where two collinear laser beams destructively interfere along a certain length. Everybody wants ...
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1answer
855 views
How to determine divergence of a LED source from a single biconvex lens
I'm trying to determine the divergence angle of light from a single lens that is completely illuminated by a high power LED.
Most optics textbooks only deal with imaging optics and I'm having a hard ...
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3answers
205 views
Will watering tea down make it clearer?
If I poured water into my tea, would I see more or less of the bottom of the tea-cup?
Intuitively, there would be as many particles blocking as many photons, and so I'd see the bottom just as clearly ...
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3answers
123 views
Can a multipass x-ray absorption cell be constructed?
I've been trying to understand the various concepts behind x-ray optics compared to standard visible/IR optics like mirrors and such. However, the x-ray mirrors I've been finding typically have ...
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1answer
67 views
Perfectly focusing refractive surface
On reading Feynman's lecture on physics, in the geometrical optics section he said that a curve which focuses all the rays coming from a point to another fixed point beyond the refracting surface ...
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1answer
84 views
Infinite reflection of light and the conservation of energy / momentum
First off, I confess I'm no physicist, but I have been asking people with a more extensive knowledge this one question, without a definitive answer so far.
Basically, I'm playing around with the idea ...
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1answer
84 views
Photon in a weighted superposition of states
Consider an experiment that produces photons in an entangled state such as $1/\sqrt{2}(|{H,H}\rangle+|{V,V}\rangle)$. The photons are in a superposition of horizontal and vertical polarization, and ...
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Optical trapping problem
Can we make light slower by applying optical trapping (I mean applying laser beam to lower the speed of light)?
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1answer
104 views
How would one generate Brownian light? What would it look like?
When light is an equal mix of all visible frequencies, we call it white light.
By analogy, sound that is a mix of all audible frequencies is called white noise.
For sound, there is an additional ...
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1answer
213 views
What's the difference between photoelastic constant, photoelastic coefficient and the acousto-optic coefficient
I'm reading a few papers about how the optical properties of materials change when a under stress or a force acts upon them. I seem to be encountering the following three terms:
Photoelastic ...
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1answer
396 views
Application of diffraction problem!
Here is a problem that I am working on, which is the applying the concepts of diffraction to the setting of the sun:
Air has a small, usually negligible index of refraction. It is 1.0002926. This ...
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1answer
359 views
What are the properties of the partially polarized light on refraction?
When a ray of ordinary light is passed on the surface of the water the reflected light will be completely polarized( vibrations in one plane).
My question is what will be plane of vibration in the ...
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1answer
60 views
In electro-optic material, what is happening to the structure of the material for the index of refraction to change?
I apologize if electro-optic material is not the correct word.
As I understand it, when an electric field is applied to an electro-optic material, the index of refraction changes in proportion to the ...
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2answers
171 views
Why do we stop using optics for photons above a certain energy?
I'm reading about how the soon-to-be-launched NuSTAR is on the cutting edge of focusing x-rays, which captures 5 to 80 keV radiation by focusing them with optics that have a 10.15 meter focal length ...
