Thursday, February 16, 2006

spherical aberration

Definition: A perfect lens or mirror (either converging or diverging) would have a hyperbolic curvature of its face(s). If a spherical face is used, rays are focused to different points depending on their angle with the axis. A point object would be imaged into a shape known as a caustic, which is roughly the shape of the reflection of an overhead light in the bottom of a rounded tea cup.

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