Light (Basics and Geometric Optics

This text is meant to accompany class discussions. It is not everything there is to know about uniform circular motion. It is meant as a prep for class. More detailed notes and examples are given in the class notes, presentations, and demonstrations. See the links below.

Curved Mirror Math

This 3 1/2 minute video describe the equation that are used for analyzing spherically curved mirrors and many, many, tips about the signs in the equations and what they mean. Keeping the signs in paramount to the math analysis.

This video can be found on YouTube at https://youtu.be/yGKyZaERpo4

Concave mirror

Convex Mirror

The signs are very meaningful. Recall that a negative sign means, "the opposite of..." For magnification, the negative sign means the opposite of upright. This makes "-M" an inverted image. For the images position, s', a negative s' means the image is located on the opposite side of where the REFLECTED light is. A negative focus, center, and radius, means the location of the mirror's focus is opposite the side where the incident light comes from.

Example 1

Question
Solution on paper
Video Solution

Solution

This video can be found on YouTube at https://youtu.be/Q9j3sNxYJyA

Example 2

Question
Solution

An upright image is twice as large as the object and the image is 20 cm away from the mirror. Where is the focus of the mirror located?

The first thing you might be wondering about is what kind of mirror is this. It is a concave mirror because only concave mirrors can create images that are upright and magnified. This means when you solve for the focus, you should get a positive number. Unlike convex mirrors, concave mirrors also have the focus on the same side as the indicent light.

Solution

by Tony Wayne ...(If you are a teacher, please feel free to use these resources in your teaching.)

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