ABSTRACT
This chapter starts the introductory optics with a brief description of electromagnetic waves. The classical description of light begins with the study of electromagnetic waves as laid out by James Clerk Maxwell. In 1862, James Clerk Maxwell unified the formerly disparate areas of electricity and magneticsm and drew an important conclusion that light was an electromagnetic wave. Maxwell unified the phenomena of electricity and magnetism as expounded by Karl Friedrich Gauss, Andre-Marie Ampere, and Michael Faraday and derived a set of four equations that bear his name, namely, Maxwell's equations. These equations, with some auxillary equations known as constitutive relations, form the foundations of classical electromagnetic theory. Python code could be used to generate a user-interface to see how the wave changes on changing the wavelength (and hence the frequency), initial phase, and the amplitude. The various sliders can be moved to see how the wave changes.
