Readings and Applets for PHY 3400

Readings in blue are required reading.

Introduction

FSU site on light and color with a large number of useful applets. You can spend hours at this site
Light Inquiry Through Experiments.

(Encyclopedia Britannica)

(Encyclopedia Britannica)

Appletshowing transverse and longitudinal waves. Note that every point in the medium moves up and down (transverse) or back and forth (longitudinal) around its initial position.
Applet showing wave interference from two waves moving in opposite directions. You can adjust the types of waves that interact. Turn on the "notes" feature as you try out different kinds of waves.
Transverse standing wave applet. You can adjust the number of nodes (a node is an interior point that does not move).
Longitudinal standing wave applet. You can adjust the number of nodes (a node is an interior point that does not move).
Standing wave applet for a stretched sheet. This applet shows that a sheet can also undergo oscillations and waves (a drumhead, for example).
Polarization applet from the FSU site. You can adjust the angle of polarization of the filters. Start off with both filters at 0 degrees, then try chaning the angles and see if you understand what is going on.

An interesting applet showing how electromagnetic waves are composed of oscillating transverse electric and magnetic fields.

Glennbrook South High School Physics has several interesting areas for light and electromagnetic phenomena, including short units on the visible spectrum and polarization. Also check out the short discussion on why we think that light is a wave.
Blackbody radiation applet from the FSU site. Heat the jug and watch the colors change with temperature. Why do you see color changes?
Relativistic Optics, see what would happen if we can change the speed of light.

An applet showing additive primaries and the rgb color scheme used by monitors, televisions, etc. It demonstrates quite effectively how, by choosing shades of each primary color (r,g,b), one can generate millions of colors.
Several applets demonstrating additive and subtractive primaries. One applet allows you to choose shades of subtractive primaries, demonstrating how color printing can yield an enormous number of colors from only 3 subtractive primaries.
Color separation applet. This simple applet from the FSU site demonstrates vividly the four color printing process and CMYK color separations.
Here's a simple exercise on painting a person in a football uniform using CMYK subtractive colors, though the K part is left out. You will need Shockwave for this exercise. Try it and see if you can guess the resulting colors by trying CMY combinations.
Here's a simple site with a useful summary of the color concepts we learned in class.
Glennbrook South High School Physics has several interesting areas for color. Please do the exercises listed for the units on color addition and color subtraction.

This page has several applets on color and many links to color measurement and color theory sites. These are described below

The spectrum applet allows you to draw a 16 point spectrum and generate the (x,y,z) coordinates of the spectrum as you draw it.
The chromaticity and gamut applet allows you to draw a color gamut triangle within the CIE color curve and get the coordinates of any point within the gamut.
The color space and conversion applet allows you to find colors in (r,g,b) space, where the space is represented as a cube, with each of the three colors forming a side.
The color matching game applet tests your skill at matching colors

This applet allows you to view colors using a color tree diagram very similar to the Munsel color system.

(Encyclopedia Britannica)

(Encyclopedia Britannica)

Prof. Avery's notes about the eye (PDF)
Berkeley lecture on human vision and how color is used to convey information (color, B&W)
Eye and Retina (PDF) (Course at Washington University)
"The Joy of Visual Perception: A Web Book". This is an extremely useful reference with lots of pictures and explanatory material.

Summary of common optical illusions, from Encyclopedia Britannica
Fantastic illusion showing lightness constancy
Interesting illusions from a psychology course
Animated Necker cube
Counterroating spirals. This is really freaky.
Hall of illusions from IllusionWorks. Many of these are interactive and extremely interesting.
EYEMANTICS.
More illusion s

This applet demonsrates refraction at a plane boundary between two media. You can adjust the index of refraction and the angle of incidence.
Another applet demonstrating reflection and refraction at a plane boundary.
This wonderful optics applet lets you play with mirrors and lenses. You can move the object or change the focal length by clicking and dragging. The interesting and more realistic case of non-paraxial light rays is also shown.
This applet also demonstrates spherical aberration in a real thick lens. You can vary the radius of curvature of each side of the lens and adjust the index of refraction of the lens material.

How cameras and projectors work, from "How Things Work"
A primer on how cameras work
Another basic site about cameras
The FSU microscopy site with an incredible number of resources, including photomicrography and a primer on microscopes.
How telescopes and microscopes work, from "How Things Work"
Information about the Hubble space telescope from the Space Telescope Science Institute, including some great pictures.

Applet demonstrating two slit interference. You can change the wavelength, the slit separation and the distance of the slits from the screen.
This applet demonstrates wave interference with a simulated ripple tank.
This applet gives a different view of two slit interference.

Very well done rainbow applet, showing how the primary and secondary rays get bent inside the raindrop as the position of the incoming ray changes.
Here is a somewhat simpler rainbow applet
This site has a detailed discussion of rainbows and related optical phenomena, including several pictures and diagrams.
Long list of mirages collected from around the world.
Science page explaining scattering, blue skies and other atmospheric effects.
A well done site for all kinds of Atmospheric effects.