Optics

• Course Description
• Topics List
• Desire to Learn [D2L]
• Instructional Addendum for Flood or other Natural Disaster
  

Universal Excuse Form

Note: D2L will be used for the course gradebook. All assignments will be posted on the D2L course website. Perusall (accessed through D2L) is used to facilitate reading discussions. You can and should supplement the assigned readings.

Required Course Material:

Physics of Light and Optics, by Justin Peatross and Michael Ware, BYU (2015) [PDF]
University Physics Volume 3 (Unit 1), by S. Lind, J. Sanny and B. Moebs, OpenStax (2016) [PDF]
Access to mathematical modeling tools: Python and Maple (or Mathematica)

Blue Dragon lava flow in Craters of the Moon NP.
- image courtesy SAL

Safety Tip #283: Do not try to walk across molten lava while wearing sneakers.

Microscopy is part of optics which reminds me of this thought...

Great fleas have little fleas upon their backs to bite 'em,
And little fleas have lesser fleas, and so ad infinitum.
And the great fleas themselves, in turn, have greater fleas to go on;
While these again have greater still, and greater still, and so on.
- A Budget of Paradoxes by Augustus De Morgan (1872)

This was imitating a prior poem.

So nat'ralists observe, a flea
Has smaller fleas that on him prey;
And these have smaller fleas to bite 'em.
And so proceeds Ad infinitum
- On Poetry: A Rhapsody by Jonathon Swift (1733)

Supplemental Course Material:

Optics 4th Edition, Eugene Hecht, Addison Wesley, (2002) ISBN 0-8053-8566-5
Introduction to Optics 3rd Edition, by F.L. Pedrotti S.J., L.M. Pedrotti and L.S. Pedrotti, Prentice Hall (1998)  ISBN-13: 978-0131499331
Optics for Dummies, by Galen C. Duree Jr., Wiley (2011)  ISBN-13: 978-1118017234