Task 1. Discuss with a partner

1. Do you agree or disagree with the quotation above?

2. What does optics study?

Task 2. Skim the text and choose the best title of it.

a) Two branches of optics

b) The history of the development of optics

c) The general considerations of optics

______________________

Optics is the science concerned with the genesis and propagation of light, the changes that it undergoes and produces, and other phenomena closely associated with it.

There are two major branches of optics, physical and geometrical. Physical optics deals primarily with the nature and properties of light itself. Geometrical optics has to do with the principles that govern the image-forming properties of lenses, mirrors, and other devices that make use of light. It also includes optical data processing, which involves the manipulation of the information content of an image formed by coherent optical systems.

Originally, the term «optics» was used only in relation to the eye and vision. Later, as lenses and other devices for aiding vision began to be developed, these were naturally called optical instruments, and the meaning of the term «optics» eventually became broadened to cover any application of light, even though the ultimate receiver is not the eye but a physical detector, such as a photographic plate or a television camera.

In the 20th century optical methods came to be applied extensively to regions of the electromagnetic radiation spectrum not visible to the eye, such as X-rays, ultraviolet, infrared, and microwave radio waves, and to this extent these regions are now often included in the general field of optics.

(From Britannica Online Encyclopedia)

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