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and on the right i6 is 1/n, where ø is the index of refraction. The light travels
more slowly in the glass by a facbOr n.
Now suppose that we have a point at Ó, at a distance s from the front surface
of the glass, and another point Ó“ at a distance sf inside the glass, and we desire
to arrange the curved surface in such a manner that every ray from @ which hits
the surface, at any point , will be bent so as to proceed toward the point Ó”.
For that to be true, we have to shape the surface in such a way that the time it
takes for the light to go from Ó to Ð, that is, the distance ÓØ?P divided by the
speed of light (the speed here is unity), plus œ - Ó“P, which is the time it takes
to go from P to Ớƒ, is equal to a constant independent of the point P. Thịs
condition supplies us with an equation for determining the surface. The answer
1s that the surface is a very complicated fourth-degree curve, and the student
may entertain himself by trying to calculate it by analytic geometry. It is simpler
to try a special case that corresponds to s —> œo, because then the curve 1s a
second-degree curve and is more recognizable. lt is interesting to compare this
curve with the parabolic curve we found for a focusing mirror when the light is
coming from infnity.
So the proper surface cannot easily be made——to focus the light from one
point to another requires a rather complicated surface. Ït turns out in practice
that we do not try to make such complicated surfaces ordinarily, but instead we
make a compromise. Instead of trying to get aøÏl the rays to come to a Íocus, we
arrange it so that only the rays fairly close to the axis Ó” come to a focus. The
farther ones may deviate if they want to, unfortunately, because the ideal surface
1s complicated, and we use instead a spherical surface with the right curvature at
the axis. Ït is so much easier to fabricate a sphere than other surfaces that it 1s
proftable for us to fnd out what happens to rays striking a spherical surface,
supposing that only the rays near the axis are going to be focused perfectly.
'Those rays which are near the axis are sometimes called parazial røs, and what
we are analyzing are the conditions for the focusing of paraxial rays. We shall
discuss later the errors that are introduced by the fact that all rays are not aÌways
close to the axis.
'Thus, supposing ? is close to the axis, we drop a perpendicular P@) such that
the height P@) is h. For a moment, we imagine that the surface is a plane passing
through ?. In that case, the time needed to go from @ to would exceed the
time from Ó to @, and also, the time from to Ó” would exceed the time from
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Q to Ở But that is why the glass must be curved, because the total excess
time must be compensated by the delay in passing from V to Q! Ñow the ezcess
time along route ÓP is h2/2s, and the excess time on the other route is nh2/2s”.
This excess time, which must be matched by the delay in going along VQ, differs
from what it would have been in a vacuum, because there is a medium present.
In other words, the time to go from V to Q is not as 1Í it were straight in the
air, but 1E is slower by the factor ø%œ, so that the excess delay in this distance 1s
then (wT— 1)VQ. And now, how large is VQ? TÍ the point Ở is the center of the
sphere and if its radius is #, we see by the same formula that the distance V) is
cqual to h”/2ÿ. Therefore we discover that the law that connects the distances s
and s/, and that gives us the radius of curvature ? of the surface that we need, is
(h2/2s) + (nh2/2s!) = (n — 1)h”/2R (27.2)
(1/s) + (n/s) = (n — 1)/R. (27.3)
If we have a position Ó and another position ÓØ”, and want to focus light from @
to Ø7, then we can calculate the required radius of curvature ## of the surface by
this formula.
Now it turns out, interestingly, that the same lens, with the same curvature †,
will focus for other distances, namely, for any pair of distances such that the sum
of the two reciprocals, one multiplied by m, is a constant. 'Phus a given lens will
(so long as we limit ourselves to paraxial rays) focus not only from Ó to Ở', but
between an infinite number of other pairs of points, so long as those pairs of
points bear the relationship that 1/s + œ/s” is a constant, characteristic of the
In particular, an interesting case is that in which s —> oo. W© can see from the
formula that as one s increases, the other decreases. In other words, if point Ó
goes out, poini Ó“ comes in, and vice versa. As point Ó goes toward infinity,
point @“ keeps moving in until it reaches a certain distance, called the ƒocal
length ƒ', inside the material. If parallel rays come in, they will meet the axis
at a disbance ƒ7. Likewise, we could imagine it the other way. (Remember the
reciprocity rule: if light will go rom Ó to Ó”, of course it will also go from Ớ/
to Ó.) Therefore, if we had a light source inside the gÌass, we might want to know
where the focus is. In particular, if the light in the glass were at infinity (same
problem) where would it come to a focus outside? Thịis distance is called ƒ. Of
course, we can also put it the other way. If we had a light source at ƒ and the
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light went through the surface, then ¡% would go out as a parallel beam. We can
easily fnd out what ƒ and 7 are:
m/Ƒ) =(n— 1)/R Or ƒƑ = Rn/(n— 1), (27.4)
1/ƒ =(n—1)/R OF ƒ =R/(n- ]). (27.5)
W© see an interesting thing: iƒwe divide each focal length by the corresponding
index of refraction we get the same resultl 'Phis theorem, in fact, is general. lt is
true of any system oŸ lenses, no matter how complicated, so it is interesting to
remember. We did not prove here that it is general—we merely noted i% for a
single surface, but it happens to be true in general that the two focal lengths of
a system are related in this way. Sometimes q. (27.3) is written in the form
1/s-+m/s = 1/ƒ. (27.6)
Thịis is more useful than (27.3) because we can measure ƒ more easily than we
can measure the curvature and index of refraction of the lens: if we are not
interested in designing a lens or in knowing how it got that way, but simply liÑt
1t of a shelf, the interesting quantity is ƒ, not the œ and the 1 and the #l
Now an interesting situation occurs If s becomes less than ƒ. What happens
then? IÝ s < ƒ, then (1/s) > (1/ƒ), and therefore s” is negative; our equation says
that the light will focus only with a negative value of s”, whatever that meansl
It does mean something very interesting and very defñnite. It is still a useful
formula, in other words, even when the numbers are negative. What it means is
shown in Fig. 27-3. If we draw the rays which are diverging from Ó, they will be
bent, it is true, at the surface, and they will not come to a focus, because ) is so
close in that they are “beyond parallel” However, they diverge as if they had
come from a point Ó“ ou£side the glass. This is an apparent image, sometimes
— ===-
Fig. 27-3. A virtual image.
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called a ơrtual image. The image @' in Fig. 27-2 is called a real zœmage. TỶ the
light really comes to a point, it is a real image. But if the light appears to be
coming ƒrom a point, a fictitious point diferent from the original point, it is a