Waves And Optics

COURSE DESCRIPTION

The course is an introduction to oscillating systems and waves. Topics include: free, clamped forced and coupled oscillations of physical systems, travelling waves and wave packets, reflection, and interference phenomena.

The course also provides an introduction to classical physical optics, in particular interference, diffraction and polarization, and to the elementary theory of lenses. The theory covered will be applied in the analysis of one or more modern optical instruments.

EXPECTED LEARNING OUTCOMES

By the end of this course, students should be able to:

·         Discuss the general view of the manifestation of wave phenomena in general and optical systems in particular.

·         Explain a variety of physical phenomena, including: vibration, examples of harmonic oscillators, superposition, driven oscillations and resonance, coupled oscillators and normal modes, normal modes of continuous systems, group velocity and wave packets diffraction, interference, geometrical optics, wave properties of light.

·         Illustrate  the wide applicability of vibration and wave concepts, and

·         Account for the physical intuition and experience with the mathematical description of physical phenomena.