Optics Materials

Geometrical optics is perhaps the single most requested block of material that is omitted in the Six Ideas course. We are therefore posting a 5-chapter "unit O" on geometrical optics written by Professor Paul DeYoung for his Six Ideas course at Hope College (thanks very much to Paul for making this unit available to us!). The links below allow give you access to individual chapter files in PDF format. You may print them and and distribute them to your classes:

Cover Page
Chapter O1: The Nature of Light
Chapter O2: Reflection and Mirrors
Chapter O3: Introduction to Lenses
Chapter O4: Multiple-Element Optical Systems
Chapter O5: Optical Instruments

A second possible approach to this problem is to offer some labs in geometrical optics (this is what we do at Pomona). For more information about this approach, see the lab program page.