ABSTRACT
Optics is both a very old and a very contemporary ›eld of research. Mirrors made millennia ago as well as the advanced imaging methods that decorate recent years’ lists of scienti›c breakthroughs (Betzig et al. 2006, Bates et al. 2007, Hell 2007, Abbott 2009) can all be understood with the same physical framework. We will explore the basic physics of optics in this chapter, intended to serve as a review of elementary principles, or as an introduction for readers new to optics. Our treatment is necessarily brief and minimal-the reader interested in further elaboration should consult a textbook devoted to optics, such as Hecht (2002) or Born and Wolf (1997).
