Images


Curved mirrors and lenses can bring all the beams coming from a small light source together at a point. The resulting dot of light, viewed on a screen, is a representation of the original source, which we can call an image of the source. If there are many sources in sight, there are many images, giving an image of the scene.

This section will study these images, learning where and how many there are, and what properties they have. Being able to manipulate the information and energy content of light is of great technological importance -- this is the beginnings of the theory of telescopes, microscopes, cameras, and vision itself.



Main pages in this section:
SectionEstimated time required
Exploring images 60 minutes
Do lenses make more than one focussed image? 60 minutes
How big is an image? 60 minutes
Science content: images 30 minutes
Discussion of images 30 minutes

Another page relevant to this section:
Why study images?
Next section: light energy