SUMMARY

This unit developed ray optics from the two laws of reflection through plane and spherical mirrors (mirror equation, magnification, Cartesian sign convention), refraction and Snell's law (apparent depth, atmospheric refraction), critical angle and total internal reflection (diamond, mirage, TIR prisms, Snell's window, optical fibres and their acceptance angle/numerical aperture), refraction at a single spherical surface, thin lenses (lens maker's formula, lens equation, magnification, power, combinations in and out of contact), and the prism (deviation, minimum deviation, refractive index, dispersion, dispersive power, scattering and the blue sky). It then developed wave optics from the four historical theories of light, through Huygens' principle (and its proof of the laws of reflection and refraction), interference (coherent sources, Young's double slit, fringe width, thin-film colours), diffraction (single slit, Fresnel's distance, the diffraction grating, resolution and Rayleigh's criterion), and polarisation (Malus' law, Brewster's law, double refraction and the Nicol prism, scattering). Finally, all of this w …