The Optics of Rays, Wavefronts, and Caustics

The Optics of Rays, Wavefronts, and Caustics
Author: O Stavroudis
Publisher: Elsevier
Total Pages: 333
Release: 2012-12-02
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0323155553

The Optics of Rays, Wavefronts, and Caustics presents the fundamental principles of geometrical optics and its unique role in modern technology. It also discusses the procedures used in optical design, which are based on geometrical optics. Organized into 16 chapters, this volume begins with an overview of the underlying general mathematical facts, which constitute the substance of geometrical optics. It then presents the various techniques used to solve the ray and wavefront problems in general inhomogeneous medium. Other chapters consider the concept of ray tracing as a tool for calculating the principal curvatures of a wavefront as it propagates through a lens. In addition, the book tackles several topics, including the aspects of lens design, as well as a system of equations that are similar to the Maxwell equations. The last chapter deals with orthotomic systems of rays. Optical designers, optical physicists, theoretical physicists, and mathematicians will find the information and methods in this book extremely useful.

Natural Focusing and Fine Structure of Light

Natural Focusing and Fine Structure of Light
Author: J.F Nye
Publisher: CRC Press
Total Pages: 354
Release: 1999-01-01
Genre: Technology & Engineering
ISBN: 9780750306102

A new kind of optics has grown up during the last 25 years. Geometrical optics has been studied for centuries (the law of reflection was known to the ancient Greeks) and wave optics (heralded by Huygens' Treatise on Light) has been studied for more than 300 years. But in the mid 1970s it began to be understood that when natural processes focus light, as when sunlight is reflected from the sea at sunset, the light caustics that are produced have a systematic behavior previously unrecognized. Natural Focusing and Fine Structure of Light: Caustics and Wave Dislocations provides a definitive account of how classical optics has been reconstructed in a modern way by emphasizing the hierarchy of singularities that exists in light fields. The book discusses the singularities of geometrical optics and their systematization by catastrophe theory. It explores the diffraction patterns associated with caustics that are dominated by wave dislocations, line singularities of the phase, and analogous to crystal dislocations. The book is a perfect blend of mathematics and physics, combining theory, computer simulation, and beautiful experimental photographs of the phenomena studied.

Caustics, Catastrophes and Wave Fields

Caustics, Catastrophes and Wave Fields
Author: Yu.A. Kravtsov
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 229
Release: 2012-12-06
Genre: Science
ISBN: 3642598870

Caustics, Catastrophes and Wave Fields in a sense continues the treatment of the earlier volume 6 "Geometrical Optics of Inhomogeneous Media" in the present book series, by analysing caustics and their fields on the basis of modern catastrophe theory. This volume covers the key generalisations of geometrical optics related to caustic asymptotic expansions: The Lewis-Kravtsov method of standard functions, Maslov's method of caonical operators, Orlov's method of interference integrals, as well as their modifications for penumbra, space-time, random and other types of caustics. All the methods are amply illustrated by worked problems concerning relevant wave-field applications.

Galileo Unbound

Galileo Unbound
Author: David D. Nolte
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 384
Release: 2018-07-12
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0192528505

Galileo Unbound traces the journey that brought us from Galileo's law of free fall to today's geneticists measuring evolutionary drift, entangled quantum particles moving among many worlds, and our lives as trajectories traversing a health space with thousands of dimensions. Remarkably, common themes persist that predict the evolution of species as readily as the orbits of planets or the collapse of stars into black holes. This book tells the history of spaces of expanding dimension and increasing abstraction and how they continue today to give new insight into the physics of complex systems. Galileo published the first modern law of motion, the Law of Fall, that was ideal and simple, laying the foundation upon which Newton built the first theory of dynamics. Early in the twentieth century, geometry became the cause of motion rather than the result when Einstein envisioned the fabric of space-time warped by mass and energy, forcing light rays to bend past the Sun. Possibly more radical was Feynman's dilemma of quantum particles taking all paths at once — setting the stage for the modern fields of quantum field theory and quantum computing. Yet as concepts of motion have evolved, one thing has remained constant, the need to track ever more complex changes and to capture their essence, to find patterns in the chaos as we try to predict and control our world.

Singularities of Caustics and Wave Fronts

Singularities of Caustics and Wave Fronts
Author: Vladimir Arnold
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 271
Release: 2013-12-01
Genre: Mathematics
ISBN: 9401133301

One service mathematics has rendered the 'Et moi ...) si j'avait su comment en revenir, human race. It has put common sense back je n'y serais point aile.' Jules Verne where it belongs, on the topmost shelf next to the dusty canister labelled 'discarded non The series is divergent; therefore we may be sense'. ErieT. Bell able to do something with it. O. Heaviside Mathematics is a tool for thought. A highly necessary tool in a world where both feedback and non linearities abound. Similarly, all kinds of parts of mathematics serve as tools for other parts and for other sciences. Applying a simple rewriting rule to the quote on the right above one finds such statements as: 'One service topology has rendered mathematical physics .. .'; 'One service logic has rendered com puter science .. .'; 'One service category theory has rendered mathematics .. .'. All arguably true. And all statements obtainable this way form part of the raison d'etre of this series.

Introduction to Aberrations in Optical Imaging Systems

Introduction to Aberrations in Optical Imaging Systems
Author: José Sasián
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 285
Release: 2013
Genre: Science
ISBN: 1107006333

An accessible, well presented introduction to the theory of optical aberrations, covering key topics that are often missing from comparable books.

The Mathematics of Geometrical and Physical Optics

The Mathematics of Geometrical and Physical Optics
Author: Orestes N. Stavroudis
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 240
Release: 2006-08-21
Genre: Science
ISBN: 352760829X

In this sequel to his book, "The Optics of Rays, Wavefronts, and Caustics," Stavroudis not only covers his own research results, but also includes more recent developments. The book is divided into three parts, starting with basic mathematical concepts that are further applied in the book. Surface geometry is treated with classical mathematics, while the second part covers the k-function, discussing and solving the eikonal equation as well as Maxwell equations in this context. A final part on applications consists of conclusions drawn or developed in the first two parts of the book, discussing such topics as the Cartesian oval, the modern Schiefspiegler, Huygen's principle, and Maxwell's model of Gauss' perfect lens.

Fundamentals and Basic Optical Instruments

Fundamentals and Basic Optical Instruments
Author: Daniel Malacara Hernández
Publisher: CRC Press
Total Pages: 642
Release: 2017-11-22
Genre: Technology & Engineering
ISBN: 1351646281

Fundamentals and Basic Optical Instruments includes thirteen chapters providing an introductory guide to the basics of optical engineering, instrumentation, and design. Topics include basic geometric optics, basic wave optics, and basic photon and quantum optics. Paraxial ray tracing, aberrations and optical design, and prisms and refractive optical components are included. Polarization and polarizing optical devices are covered, as well as optical instruments such as telescopes, microscopes, and spectrometers.

Handbook of Optical Engineering

Handbook of Optical Engineering
Author: Daniel Malacara
Publisher: CRC Press
Total Pages: 1008
Release: 2001-05-31
Genre: Science
ISBN: 9780203908266

This handbook explains principles, processes, methods, and procedures of optical engineering in a concise and practical way. It emphasizes fundamental approaches and provides useful formulas and step-by-step worked-out examples to demonstrate applications and clarify calculation methods. The book covers refractive, reflective, and diffractive optical components; lens optical devices; modern fringe pattern analysis; optical metrology; Fourier optics and optical image processing; electro-optical and acousto-optical devices; spatial and spectral filters; optical fibers and accessories; optical fabrication; and more. It includes over 2,000 tables, flow charts, graphs, schematics, drawings, photographs, and mathematical expressions.