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A ray with a terminus at A, with two points B and C on the right. Given a line and any point A on it, we may consider A as decomposing this line into two parts. Each such part is called a ray and the point A is called its initial point. It is also known as half-line, a one-dimensional half-space. The point A is considered to be a member of the ray.
Geometrical optics. Geometrical optics, or ray optics, is a model of optics that describes light propagation in terms of rays. The ray in geometrical optics is an abstraction useful for approximating the paths along which light propagates under certain circumstances. The simplifying assumptions of geometrical optics include that light rays:
v. t. e. Geometry (from Ancient Greek γεωμετρία (geōmetría) 'land measurement'; from γῆ (gê) 'earth, land' and μέτρον (métron) 'a measure') [1] is a branch of mathematics concerned with properties of space such as the distance, shape, size, and relative position of figures. [2] Geometry is, along with arithmetic, one of ...
v. t. e. In geometry, a line segment is a part of a straight line that is bounded by two distinct end points, and contains every point on the line that is between its endpoints. It is a special case of an arc, with zero curvature. The length of a line segment is given by the Euclidean distance between its endpoints.
t. e. A circle is a shape consisting of all points in a plane that are at a given distance from a given point, the centre. The distance between any point of the circle and the centre is called the radius. The length of a line segment connecting two points on the circle and passing through the centre is called the diameter.
Geometry (from the Ancient Greek: γεωμετρία; geo- "earth", -metron "measurement") arose as the field of knowledge dealing with spatial relationships. Geometry was one of the two fields of pre-modern mathematics, the other being the study of numbers (arithmetic). Classic geometry was focused in compass and straightedge constructions.
In blue, the point (4, 210°). In mathematics, the polar coordinate system is a two-dimensional coordinate system in which each point on a plane is determined by a distance from a reference point and an angle from a reference direction. The reference point (analogous to the origin of a Cartesian coordinate system) is called the pole, and the ...
Each optical element (surface, interface, mirror, or beam travel) is described by a 2 × 2 ray transfer matrix which operates on a vector describing an incoming light ray to calculate the outgoing ray. Multiplication of the successive matrices thus yields a concise ray transfer matrix describing the entire optical system.