1. Physics 3232 Optics I Professor Rick Trebino Howey Physics Building
Office: N011
4-1690
Cell phone:
Class hours: TTh 1:30-3
Office hours: after class
Call my cell phone anytime!
Class TA: Lina Xu Howey Physics Building, Ultrafast Optics Lab, S05,

2. Why study optics?
This course will change the way you look at the world. Literally.
We’ll talk about things you see every day but generally don’t question.
Why do windows act like mirrors at night (when you’re inside)?
Does light really always travel in a straight line?
What’s the difference between a laser and a light bulb?
What’s going on in a rainbow?
Why is the sky blue?
Why is an oily film on a puddle so colorful?
What’s all this business about light slowing down and speeding up?

3. Bedtime reading Course required texts: Eugene Hecht, Optics, 4th ed.
J.F. James, A Student's Guide to Fourier Transforms
Other books:
R.N. Bracewell, The Fourier Transform and Its Applications (~$100)
G.R. Fowles, Introduction to Modern Optics (~$15)

4. Homework
Homework will be due on its due date at 5PM in our TA’s mail box in the physics office—not in class or under my door.
We'll try to grade and return the homework within a few days.
Everyone will be allowed to turn in one assignment late (due the following class or when we return the home-work, whichever is later; our TA, who will keep track of this).
You can work with others on homework (I encourage you to do so!), but write it up yourself.
HW problems shouldn’t re-quire many pages each, so if you’re having trouble, talk to us.

5. Quizzes and other detestable stuff
There will be three quizzes, which we'll go over in class and try to return to you the following class.
I’ll drop your lowest quiz score, so if you’re sick or just having a bad day on quiz day, don’t worry.
Sept. 25 Thursday Quiz #1
Oct. 21 Tuesday Quiz #2
Nov. 25 Tuesday Quiz #3
There will be a project, but no final.
Grading: Each quiz (2): 25%; Project: 25%; Homework: 25%

6. Project
Interference between different sources yields “nodes” and “anti-nodes.”
Node patterns of two sources with different spacings
It will involve creating a PowerPoint lecture on an advanced optics subject of your choice (I’ll make suggestions).
Don’t worry; you won’t have to present it; just create it.
(By creating one, you’ve given me implicit permission to put an edited version of it in the class lectures on my web site for dissemination to anyone teaching optics to anyone—with credit given to you for creating it. Thanks!)
It’ll be due the last class day of the term.
Such interference occurs for counter-propagating laser beams, too.
A typical slide

7. No one’s perfect. So I give lots of partial credit.
But you must say what you’re doing! Write a lot of text in addition to equations in your homework and quizzes.

8. My lectures are on the web.
All my lectures are in PowerPoint and are on my web site: (click on “Lectures”).
Please download them before class, so you don’t have to take many notes in class.
They’re pretty complete and stable now, so you can download them all now and you’ll have the whole term’s lectures in front of you! But I may change some slightly.

9. The Importance of Having Class
You should come to class because there’s a lot that I’ll say that won’t be in the Power Point files. And which will be on the quizzes.
In the past, people who have skipped a lot of classes have received very bad grades. Conversely, people who’ve come to most or all of the classes nearly always receive A’s and B’s.

10. Looking to the future…
There should be an Optics Lab course this spring.
I’ll be teaching a first-year graduate optics course that follows this one in the spring of 2009, called Ultrafast Optics, Physics If you do well in this course, you should be able to do well in Ultrafast Optics also.

11. There will be a Class Party!
Meet your classmates, my grad students, and others who’ve taken Optics I in the past (and survived!).
We’ll try to pick a date that’s convenient for everyone. It’ll be at my home, which is very interesting.
I’ll distribute maps, and we can carpool.
Bring a date (or dates) or friend(s)!

12. Why study optics? Lasers and fiber optics will soon replace most wires.

13. Optics has some unintuitive ideas.
But when you think about them for a while, they make sense.

14. Understanding the ideas of each lecture requires the knowledge of the previous lectures.
If you keep up, you won’t end up looking like this the night before the quizzes!
Image from (I don’t recommend this site for anything other than this picture.)