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optics

   Also found in: Dictionary/thesaurus, Medical, Acronyms, Wikipedia, Hutchinson 0.01 sec.
optics, scientific study of light light, visible electromagnetic radiation . Of the entire electromagnetic spectrum , the human eye is sensitive to only a tiny part, the part that is called light. The wavelengths of visible light range from about 350 or 400 nm to about 750 or 800 nm.
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. Physical optics is concerned with the genesis, nature, and properties of light; physiological optics with the part light plays in vision vision, physiological sense of sight by which the form, color, size, movements, and distance of objects are perceived.

Vision in Humans



The human eye functions somewhat like a camera; that is, it receives and focuses light upon a photosensitive
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; and geometrical optics with the reflection reflection, return of a wave from a surface that it strikes into the medium through which it has traveled. The general principles governing the reflection of light and sound are similar, for both normally travel in straight lines and both are wave phenomena.
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 and refraction refraction, in physics, deflection of a wave on passing obliquely from one transparent medium into a second medium in which its speed is different, as the passage of a light ray from air into glass.
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 of light as encountered in the study of the mirror mirror, in optics, a reflecting surface that forms an image of an object when light rays coming from that object fall upon it (see reflection ). Usually mirrors are made of plate glass, one side of which is coated with metal or some special preparation to serve as a
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 and the lens lens, device for forming an image of an object by the refraction of light. In its simplest form it is a disk of transparent substance, commonly glass, with its two surfaces curved or with one surface plane and the other curved.
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optics

Science concerned with the production and propagation of light, the changes it undergoes and produces, and closely related phenomena. Physical optics deals with the nature and properties of light; geometric optics deals with the formation of images by mirrors, lenses, and other devices that use light. Optical data processing involves manipulation of the information content of an image formed by coherent (one-wavelength) optical systems. The study of optics has led to the development of devices such as eyeglasses and contact lenses, telescopes, microscopes, cameras, binoculars, lasers, and optical fibres (see fibre optics).


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Photography has given us proofs of the incomparable beauty of our satellite; all is known regarding the moon which mathematical science, astronomy, geology, and optics can learn about her.
Yet those same bleared optics had a strange, penetrating power, when it was their owner's purpose to read the human soul.
She screwed her dim optics to their acutest point, in the hope of making out, with greater distinctness, a certain window, where she half saw, half guessed, that a tailor's seamstress was sitting at her work.
 
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