Optics

:See also List of optical topics.

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Optics (appearance or look in ancient Greek) is a branch of physics that describes the behavior and properties of light and the interaction of light with matter. Optics explains and is illuminated by optical phenomena.

Related Topics:
Greek - Physics - Light - Matter - Optical phenomena

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The field of optics usually describes the behavior of visible, infrared and ultraviolet light; however because light is an electromagnetic wave, analogous phenomena occur in X-rays, microwaves, radio waves, and other forms of electromagnetic radiation. Optics can thus be regarded as a sub-field of electromagnetism. Some optical phenomena depend on the quantum nature of light and as such some areas of optics are also related to quantum mechanics. In practice, the vast majority of optical phenomenon can be accounted for using the electromagnetic description of light, as described by Maxwell's Equations.

Related Topics:
Visible - Infrared - Ultraviolet - Light - Electromagnetic wave - X-ray - Microwave - Radio - Electromagnetic radiation - Electromagnetism - Quantum - Quantum mechanics - Maxwell's Equations

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Optics, however, as a field is often considered largely separate from the physics community. It has its own identity, societies, and conferences. The pure science aspects of the field are often called Optical Science or Optical Physics. Applied optical sciences are often called optical engineering. Applications of optical enginering related specifically to illumination systems is called illumination engineering. Each of these disciplines tends to be quite different in its applications, technical skills, focus, and professional affiliations.

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Because of the wide application of the science of "light" to real-world applications, the area of optical science, and optical engineering tends to be very cross-disiplinary. You will find optical science a part of many related disciplines including electrical engineering, physics, psychology, medicine, and others. Additionally, the most complete description of optical behavior, as known to physics, is unnecessarily complicated for most scenarios so particular simplified theories are used. These limited theories adequately describe subsets of optical phenomenon while ignoring behavior irrelevant and/or undetectable to the system of interest.

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