Optics

Optics is the study of light, its interactions with matter, and the formation and detection of images. It explains how optical systems such as lenses, mirrors, and microscopes control light.

Electromagnetic radiation: Energy that propagates through space as coupled electric and magnetic fields, including visible light. Optics studies visible light as one part of this broader spectrum.
Reflection: The return of a wave from a boundary between materials. Mirrors use reflection to redirect light and form images.
Lens: An optical element that refracts light to converge or diverge rays. Lenses form images in cameras, spectacles, and microscopes.
Ibn al-Haytham: An eleventh-century scientist whose work on vision and light helped establish experimental optics. His Book of Optics analyzed vision through light entering the eye.
Corpuscular theory of light: A historical model that treats light as a stream of particles. Newton's version competed with wave accounts of reflection and refraction.
Geometrical optics: A model of light as rays that travel along paths and change direction at interfaces. It describes image formation when diffraction can be neglected.
Refraction: The change in direction of a wave as its speed changes across a boundary. Lenses focus light by refracting it through shaped interfaces.
Telescope: An instrument that collects and magnifies light from distant objects. Telescopes use optical design to resolve faint or distant sources.
Isaac Newton: An English mathematician and physicist who developed classical mechanics and studied light and color. His prism experiments and particle theory shaped early modern optics.
Wave theory of light: A model that explains light as a propagating wave. It accounts for interference and diffraction that simple particle models cannot.

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