A favorite qualitative optics demonstration I perform in introductory physics classes makes use of students' eyeglasses to introduce converging and diverging lenses.1 Taking on the persona of a magician, I walk to the back of the classroom and approach a student wearing glasses. The top part of Fig. 1 shows a glasses-wearing student who is farsighted in her left eye and has a slight astigmatism in her right eye.
REFERENCES
1.
For demonstrations to quantitatively measure eyeglass prescriptions, see
A.
Huffman
, “Measuring a glasses prescription
,” Am. J. Phys.
48
(4
), 309
–310
(April 1980
)or
M. J.
Ruiz
, “Prescribing eyeglasses for myopia and hyperopia
,” Phys. Teach.
43
, 88
–89
(Feb. 2005
).2.
For a quantitative treatment of image sizes with converging and diverging lenses, see for example
R.
Serway
and J.
Jewett
, Physics for Scientists and Engineers
, 8th ed. (Brooks/Cole
, Belmont
, 2010
), Chap. 36.© 2011 American Association of Physics Teachers.
2011
American Association of Physics Teachers
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