Introduction

Welcome to: "Staying in Focus – an Online Optics Tutorial on the Eye",  created at Cal Poly Pomona by Barbara Hoeling of the Physics Department in collaboration with the wizards of I&IT (Instructional & Information Technology), and with the support of the TQE (Teacher Quality Enhancement) grant. This tutorial will teach you some basic geometrical optics and give you ideas on how to do simple experiments with lenses. You will learn how lenses form images, how your eye works, and why people need eye glasses.

 

Let me explain briefly how you should work with this tutorial.

The tutorial contains three short videos that demonstrate how you can do experiments with lenses. In addition, slides with graphics and narration explain the physics. There are also interactive animations that allow you to do "virtual" experiments, and to explore these concepts in more detail. Please take your time playing with the interactive animations, and make sure you are observing carefully what happens. The questions posed throughout the tutorial are meant to guide you in your studies, and to help you identify the key points you have to understand. 

One more remark: In this tutorial, you are using the ray model of light, which describes light rays as propagating in straight lines. This is in contrast to the wave model of light, which describes light as an electromagnetic wave. Certain optical phenomena, such as interference and diffraction, can only be understood within the framework of the wave model of light, and will therefore not be considered in this tutorial.

 

 

 

 

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