Re: [Phys-l] Optics textbook?

[chuck britton <cvbritton@mac.com>]

Not a text rec. but - can you use 'Visuals' other than slides??
A good calcite crystal does wonders for getting to the heart of birefringence.
Seeing the two images (of newsprint - or whatever) is a good start.
Clearly, there are two axes of optical stuff going on.
Rotate the crystal.
HeNe lasers used to have two modes that would slowly oscillate. The 
two spots that came out of the calcite would slowly fade back and 
forth.
If your audience could have 'standard' polarized sunglasses - they 
could verify that the two calcite images are  indeed oppositely 
polarized.

There plenty of circularly polarized (helical) rf antenna pics on the 
web - left and right handed.
Good to emphasize that it's all EM radiation.


At 8:34 AM -0700 4/8/10, Leigh Palmer wrote:
> .... I would appreciate your recommendations of any textbooks that 
> have either a good discussion of birefringence, or good 
> illustrations, or both.
>
> Though the topic of birefringence is relatively simple and 
> straightforward, I have found in the past that my students had more 
> difficulty internalizing it than many other explanations, even of 
> concepts like entropy.