Optics
Light, lenses, and how we see
Physics: Ibn al-Haytham
Ibn al-Haytham (965) Ibn al-Haytham, Latinized as Alhazen (c....
Physics: Speed of light
Speed of light The speed of light in vacuum, often called simply the speed of light and commonly denoted c, is a universal physical constant exactly equal to 299792458 m⋅s−1....
Physics: Dark matter
Dark matter In astronomy and cosmology, dark matter is an invisible and hypothetical form of matter that does not interact with light or other electromagnetic radiation....
Physics: Proton
Proton A proton is a stable subatomic particle, symbol p, H+, or 1H+ with a positive electric charge of +1 e (elementary charge)....
Physics: Neutron
Neutron A neutron is a subatomic particle, symbol n or n0, that has no electric charge, and a mass slightly greater than that of a proton....
Physics: Young's interference experiment
Young's interference experiment By: Thomas Young (1803) Young's interference experiment is any one of a number of optical experiments described or performed at the beginning of the nineteenth century...
Physics: Michelson–Morley experiment
Michelson–Morley experiment By: Michelson and Morley (1887) The Michelson–Morley experiment was an attempt to measure the motion of the Earth relative to the luminiferous aether, a supposed medium pe...
Physics: 1907 Nobel Prize in Physics
1907 Nobel Prize in Physics Awarded to: Albert Abraham Michelson His optical precision instruments and the spectroscopic and metrological investigations carried out with their aid....
Physics: Römer's determination of the speed of light
Römer's determination of the speed of light By: Ole Romer (1676) In 1676, the Danish astronomer Ole Rømer demonstrated that light has an apprehensible, measurable speed and so does not travel instant...
Physics: 1908 Nobel Prize in Physics
1908 Nobel Prize in Physics Awarded to: Gabriel Lippmann His method of reproducing colours photographically based on the phenomenon of interference....
Physics: Fizeau experiment
Fizeau experiment By: Hippolyte Fizeau (1851) The Fizeau experiment was carried out by Hippolyte Fizeau in 1851 to measure the relative speeds of light in moving water....
Physics: Augustin-Jean Fresnel
Augustin-Jean Fresnel (1788) Augustin-Jean Fresnel (10 May 1788 – 14 July 1827) was a French civil engineer and physicist whose research in optics led to the almost unanimous acceptance of the wave t...
Physics: Laser
Laser A laser is a device that emits light through a process of optical amplification based on the stimulated emission of electromagnetic radiation....
Physics: Cosmic ray
Cosmic ray Cosmic rays or astroparticles are high-energy particles or clusters of particles (primarily represented by protons or atomic nuclei) that move through space at nearly the speed of light....
Physics: 1912 Nobel Prize in Physics
1912 Nobel Prize in Physics Awarded to: Nils Gustaf Dalén His invention of automatic regulators for use in conjunction with gas accumulators for illuminating lighthouses and buoys....
Physics: 1914 Nobel Prize in Physics
1914 Nobel Prize in Physics Awarded to: Max von Laue His discovery of the diffraction of X-rays by crystals....
Physics: Wilhelm Conrad Rontgen
Wilhelm Conrad Rontgen (1845) Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen (27 March 1845 – 10 February 1923) was a German experimental physicist who produced and detected electromagnetic radiation in a wavelength range k...
Physics: Electromagnetic spectrum
Electromagnetic spectrum The electromagnetic spectrum is the full range of electromagnetic radiation, organized by frequency or wavelength....
Physics: Infrared
Infrared Infrared (IR; sometimes called infrared light) is electromagnetic radiation (EMR) with wavelengths longer than that of visible light but shorter than microwaves....
Physics: 1915 Nobel Prize in Physics
1915 Nobel Prize in Physics Awarded to: Sir William Henry Bragg, William Lawrence Bragg Their services in the analysis of crystal structure by means of X-rays....
Physics: Ultraviolet
Ultraviolet Ultraviolet radiation (UV; sometimes called ultraviolet light) is electromagnetic radiation of wavelengths of 100–400 nanometers, shorter than that of visible light, but longer than X-ray...
Physics: X-ray
X-ray An X-ray is a form of high-energy electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength shorter than those of ultraviolet rays and longer than those of gamma rays....
Physics: Microwave
Microwave Microwave is a form of electromagnetic radiation with wavelengths shorter than other radio waves but longer than infrared waves....
Physics: Radio wave
Radio wave Radio waves (formerly called Hertzian waves) are a type of electromagnetic radiation with the lowest frequencies and the longest wavelengths in the electromagnetic spectrum, typically with...
Physics: Diffraction
Diffraction Diffraction is the deviation of waves from straight-line propagation due to an obstacle or through an aperture, without any change in their energy....
Physics: Interference (wave propagation)
Interference (wave propagation) In physics, interference is a phenomenon in which two coherent waves are combined by adding their intensities or displacements with due consideration for their phase d...
Physics: Refraction
Refraction In physics, refraction is the redirection of a wave as it passes from one medium to another....
Physics: Reflection (physics)
Reflection (physics) Reflection is the change in direction of a wavefront at an interface between two different media so that the wavefront returns into the medium from which it originated....
Physics: Polarization (waves)
Polarization (waves) Polarization, or polarisation, is a property of transverse waves which specifies the geometrical orientation of the oscillations....
Physics: Dispersion (optics)
Dispersion (optics) Dispersion is the phenomenon in which the phase velocity of a wave depends on its frequency....
Physics: Double-slit experiment
Double-slit experiment By: Various (1909) In modern physics, the double-slit experiment demonstrates that light and matter can exhibit behavior associated with both classical particles and classical ...
Physics: Albert Abraham Michelson
Albert Abraham Michelson (1852) Albert Abraham Michelson (December 19, 1852 – May 9, 1931) was an American experimental physicist known for his work on measuring the speed of light and especially for...
Physics: 1924 Nobel Prize in Physics
1924 Nobel Prize in Physics Awarded to: Karl Manne Georg Siegbahn His discoveries and research in the field of X-ray spectroscopy....
Physics: Pound–Rebka experiment
Pound–Rebka experiment By: Pound and Rebka (1959) The Pound–Rebka experiment monitored frequency shifts in gamma rays as they rose and fell in the gravitational field of the Earth....
Physics: Lens (optics)
Lens (optics) A lens is a transmissive optical device that focuses or disperses a light beam by means of refraction....
Physics: Mirror
Mirror A mirror, also known as a looking glass, is an object that reflects an image....
Physics: Prism (optics)
Prism (optics) An optical prism is a transparent optical element with flat, polished surfaces that are designed to refract light....
Physics: Telescope
Telescope A telescope is a device used to observe distant objects by their emission, absorption, or reflection of electromagnetic radiation....
Physics: Microscope
Microscope A microscope (from Ancient Greek μικρός (mikrós) 'small' and σκοπέω (skopéō) 'to look (at); examine, inspect') is a laboratory instrument used to examine objects that are too small to be...
Physics: Roy Glauber
Roy Glauber (1925) Roy Jay Glauber (September 1, 1925 – December 26, 2018) was an American theoretical physicist....
Physics: 1930 Nobel Prize in Physics
1930 Nobel Prize in Physics Awarded to: Sir Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman His work on the scattering of light and for the discovery of the effect named after him....
Physics: Snell's law
Snell's law Snell's law (also known as the Snell–Descartes law, and the law of refraction) is a formula used to describe the relationship between the angles of incidence and refraction, when referrin...
Physics: Brewster's angle
Brewster's angle Brewster's angle (also known as the polarization angle) is the angle of incidence at which light with a particular polarization is perfectly transmitted through a transparent dielect...
Physics: Beer–Lambert law
Beer–Lambert law The Beer–Lambert law (also known as Beer’s law) is used to determine the concentration of substances in a solution....
Physics: 1937 Nobel Prize in Physics
1937 Nobel Prize in Physics Awarded to: Clinton Joseph Davisson, George Paget Thomson Their experimental discovery of the diffraction of electrons by crystals....
Physics: Adam Riess
Adam Riess (1969) Adam Guy Riess (born December 16, 1969) is an American astrophysicist and Bloomberg Distinguished Professor at Johns Hopkins University and the Space Telescope Science Institute....
Physics: Nicolaas Bloembergen
Nicolaas Bloembergen (1920) Nicolaas Bloembergen (March 11, 1920 – September 5, 2017) was a Dutch–American physicist recognized for his work in developing driving principles behind nonlinear optics f...
Physics: Donna Strickland
Donna Strickland (1959) Donna Theo Strickland (born May 27, 1959) is a Canadian optical physicist and pioneer in the field of pulsed lasers....
Physics: Ferenc Krausz
Ferenc Krausz (1962) Ferenc Krausz (born 17 May 1962) is a Hungarian physicist working in attosecond science....
Physics: Causality (physics)
Causality (physics) In physics, causality requires the cause of an event to be in the past light cone of the result and to be ultimately reducible to fundamental interactions....
Physics: 1953 Nobel Prize in Physics
1953 Nobel Prize in Physics Awarded to: Frits Zernike His demonstration of the phase contrast method, especially for his invention of the phase contrast microscope....
Physics: 1961 Nobel Prize in Physics
1961 Nobel Prize in Physics Awarded to: Robert Hofstadter, Rudolf Ludwig Mössbauer His pioneering studies of electron scattering in atomic nuclei and for his thereby achieved discoveries concerning ...
Physics: 1966 Nobel Prize in Physics
1966 Nobel Prize in Physics Awarded to: Alfred Kastler The discovery and development of optical methods for studying Hertzian resonances in atoms....
Physics: 1971 Nobel Prize in Physics
1971 Nobel Prize in Physics Awarded to: Dennis Gabor His invention and development of the holographic method....
Physics: 1981 Nobel Prize in Physics
1981 Nobel Prize in Physics Awarded to: Nicolaas Bloembergen, Arthur Leonard Schawlow, Kai M. Siegbahn Their contribution to the development of laser spectroscopy / for his contribution to the devel...
Physics: 1986 Nobel Prize in Physics
1986 Nobel Prize in Physics Awarded to: Ernst Ruska, Gerd Binnig, Heinrich Rohrer His fundamental work in electron optics, and for the design of the first electron microscope / for their design of t...
Physics: 1994 Nobel Prize in Physics
1994 Nobel Prize in Physics Awarded to: Bertram N. Brockhouse, Clifford G. Shull The development of neutron spectroscopy / for the development of the neutron diffraction technique....
Physics: 1997 Nobel Prize in Physics
1997 Nobel Prize in Physics Awarded to: Steven Chu, Claude Cohen-Tannoudji, William D. Phillips Development of methods to cool and trap atoms with laser light....
Physics: 2002 Nobel Prize in Physics
2002 Nobel Prize in Physics Awarded to: Raymond Davis Jr., Masatoshi Koshiba, Riccardo Giacconi Pioneering contributions to astrophysics, in particular for the detection of cosmic neutrinos / for pi...
Physics: 2005 Nobel Prize in Physics
2005 Nobel Prize in Physics Awarded to: Roy J. Glauber, John L. Hall, Theodor W. Hänsch His contribution to the quantum theory of optical coherence / for their contributions to the development of la...
Physics: 2009 Nobel Prize in Physics
2009 Nobel Prize in Physics Awarded to: Charles Kuen Kao, Willard S. Boyle, George E. Smith Groundbreaking achievements concerning the transmission of light in fibers for optical communication / for...
Physics: 2014 Nobel Prize in Physics
2014 Nobel Prize in Physics Awarded to: Isamu Akasaki, Hiroshi Amano, Shuji Nakamura The invention of efficient blue light-emitting diodes which has enabled bright and energy-saving white light sour...
Physics: 2018 Nobel Prize in Physics
2018 Nobel Prize in Physics Awarded to: Arthur Ashkin, Gérard Mourou, Donna Strickland The optical tweezers and their application to biological systems / for their method of generating high-intensit...
Physics: 2023 Nobel Prize in Physics
2023 Nobel Prize in Physics Awarded to: Pierre Agostini, Ferenc Krausz, Anne L’Huillier Experimental methods that generate attosecond pulses of light for the study of electron dynamics in matter....