Concepts of Classical Optics

John Strong

• Publisher: Dover Publications
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9780486150727
• Topic: Physical Sciences
• Subtopic: Physics
• Index: Physics

An intermediate course in optics, this volume explores both experimental and theoretical concepts, offering practical knowledge of geometrical optics that will enhance students' comprehension of any relevant applied science. Its exposition of the concepts of classical optics is presented with a minimum of mathematical detail but presumes some knowledge of calculus, vectors, and complex numbers.
Subjects include light as wave motion; superposition of wave motions; electromagnetic waves; interaction of light and matter; velocities and scattering of light; polarized light and dielectric boundaries; double refraction; and the interference of two sources laterally separated. Additional topics cover Fresnel and Fraunhofer diffraction; coherent sources separated in depth; applications of physical optics; images of points by single surfaces and by systems of surfaces; magnification, aperture, and field; and image defects.
Illustrative problems appear throughout the text, assuring students of an opportunity to attain a full understanding of the material. The appendixes feature short topics of lively research interest that can be used simply for reference or formally incorporated by the instructor into the course.

Chapter I

Light as Wave Motion

SOME OF THE philosophers of the seventeenth century, in thinking on what must come to the eye from a luminous body to excite the sensation of light and color, pictured light as a wave motion.

Robert Hooke was a notable proponent of this picture. But it was one thing for him to have the idea that light was a wave motion, and quite another to give that nascent idea sufficient substance to make it a significant contribution to physics.

It remained for Christian Huygens to come forth with sufficiently specific ideas to establish the wave concept of light as an hypothesis subject to validification. Huygens’ ideas were generalizations of his notions about a mechanism by which a wave motion would propagate or advance on the surface of water; a notion which was inspired, no doubt, as he watched and contemplated expanding ripples as they propagated across the surface of a Dutch canal. Huygens generalized his notions of the explanation of the progress of a two-dimensional wave front on a water surface, to the three-dimensional medium in which he imagined light propagated, which he called ether.

Huygens pictured a mechanism by which a later form of a wave front could come out of an earlier or preceding form; and with his mechanism he could explain the rectilinear propagation of light. In particular, he advanced an argument to show how light could be a wave motion and at the same time not travel around and behind obstacles, as water waves and sound waves do. And, in addition, Huygens’ mechanism explained the law of reflection of light, as at a mirror surface, and the law of refraction, as at the surface of a lens.

After these early successes of Huygens, and even after later interference experiments of Young and Fresnel in the beginning 1800’s, a strong case indeed was made for explaining light as wave motion; but it was not clear that the wave motions implied were transverse, not longitudinal. From Huygens’ time until the middle of the nineteenth century, and even after the experiments of Young and Fresnel, the wave concept was not generally accepted. Sir Isaac Newton was the most notable among those who greatly influenced the sustained opposition to it. Newton believed that light was some kind of corpuscular emanation.

We shall see below how both Newton’s notions of light as corpuscles, as well as Huygens’ concept of light as a wave motion, equally explain the law of reflection, as at a mirror surface, and the law of refraction, as at the surface of a lens. But between these equal explanations there was a great difference. Newton’s notions required the corpuscles to propagate faster in glass or water than in air. In contrast Huygens’ ideas required just the reverse, that the waves propagate less quickly through glass or water than through an equal path in air. It remained in 1850 for Foucault to measure the relative velocities of light both through air and through water; and the result of his experiment was decisively in favor of Huygens’ wave ideas—he got an inferior velocity in water.

But opinions do not always quickly accommodate themselves to new facts. Such was the case here. This philosophical inertia is apparent in a report on the opinion of 1853 that appeared in the October issue of The Scientific American of that year:

“There are in vogue two theories by which the phenomena of light are explained, the one that of Descartes, Huygens and Euler, commonly called the undulatory theory, the other that of Newton and Brewster, known as the theory of emanations. Both are unsatisfactory in certain respects. The advocates of the undulatory theory mainta...

Table of contents

• DOVER BOOKS ON PHYSICS
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Preface
• Table of Contents
• Introduction
• Chapter I - Light as Wave Motion
• Chapter II - Superposition of Wave Motions
• Chapter III - Electromagnetic Waves
• Chapter IV - Interaction of Light and Matter
• Chapter V - Velocities and Scattering of Light
• Chapter VI - Polarized Light and Dielectric Boundaries
• Chapter VII - Double Refraction—Calcite and Quartz
• Chapter VIII - Interference of Two Sources Laterally Separated
• Chapter IX - Fresnel Diffraction
• Chapter X - Fraunhofer Diffraction
• Chapter XI - Coherent Sources Separated in Depth
• Chapter XII - Applications of Physical Optics
• Chapter XIII - Images of Points by Single Surfaces
• Chapter XIV - Images of Points by Systems of Surfaces
• Chapter XV - Magnification, Aperture, and Field
• Chapter XVI - Image Defects
• Appendix A - Applications of Interferometry
• Appendix B - Interferometers
• Appendix C - The Kösters Double-image Prism
• Appendix D - Interferometry with Savart’s Plate
• Appendix E - Apodization
• Appendix F - Application of Fourier Transformations in Optics: Interferometric Spectroscopy
• Appendix G - Some Modern Concepts of Light
• Appendix H - The Speed of Light
• Appendix I - Radiation Detectors and Measuring Devices
• Appendix J - Microwave Experiments and Their Optical Analogues
• Appendix K - The Wave Theory of Microscopic Image Formation
• Appendix L - Modern Trends in Methods of Lens Design
• Appendix M - Graphical Ray Tracing
• Appendix N - Fiber Optics
• Appendix O - Optical Filters
• Appendix P - Diffraction Gratings
• Appendix Q - Mathematical Review
• Problems
• Index
• A CATALOG OF SELECTED DOVER BOOKS IN SCIENCE AND MATHEMATICS