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Alternatively, Euclid's can be interpreted as a mathematical model whose only constraint was to save the phenomena, without the need of a strict correspondence between each theoretical entity and a physical counterpart. Measuring the speed of light was one line of evidence that spelled the end of emission theory as anything other than a metaphor.
History of optics. Modern ophthalmic lens making machine. Optics began with the development of lenses by the ancient Egyptians and Mesopotamians, followed by theories on light and vision developed by ancient Greek philosophers, and the development of geometrical optics in the Greco-Roman world. The word optics is derived from the Greek term ...
Optics (Greek: Ὀπτικά) is a work on the geometry of vision written by the Greek mathematician Euclid around 300 BC. The earliest surviving manuscript of Optics is in Greek and dates from the 10th century AD. The work deals almost entirely with the geometry of vision, with little reference to either the physical or psychological aspects ...
In physics, the term "light" may refer more broadly to electromagnetic radiation of any wavelength, whether visible or not. [4][5] In this sense, gamma rays, X-rays, microwaves and radio waves are also light. The primary properties of light are intensity, propagation direction, frequency or wavelength spectrum, and polarization.
A wave theory based on Young, Augustin-Jean Fresnel and François Arago's work would materialise in a novel wave theory of light. [14] To some extent, Newton's corpuscular (particle) theory of light re-emerged in the 20th century, as a light phenomenon is currently explained as particle and wave.
The former interpretation violates energy conservation. The latter interpretation is the viable, if nonintuitive, option. Dirac explains this in the context of the double-slit experiment: Some time before the discovery of quantum mechanics people realized that the connection between light waves and photons must be of a statistical character.
Fermat's principle, also known as the principle of least time, is the link between ray optics and wave optics. Fermat's principle states that the path taken by a ray between two given points is the path that can be traveled in the least time. First proposed by the French mathematician Pierre de Fermat in 1662, as a means of explaining the ...
Geometrical optics. Geometrical optics, or ray optics, is a model of optics that describes light propagation in terms of rays. The ray in geometrical optics is an abstraction useful for approximating the paths along which light propagates under certain circumstances. The simplifying assumptions of geometrical optics include that light rays: