Course Introduction 2.71 Optics, Fall 2004
GEORGE BARBASTATHIS: So 2.71/2.710 is an introductory optics course. The idea is that the students do not know anything or very little about optics to begin with. And so the goal is that by the end of the course, they will be able to not only understand the very basics of light propagation, but also they will be able to understand the systems that utilize light for things like imaging or telecommunications or a number of different engineering applications, and they will also be able to design systems of their own-- perhaps not very complicated systems, but definitely systems that can do something useful. So by definition, then, it means that it is oriented for students who are not necessarily into the physics or electrical engineering disciplines, where, normally, you get a lot of background in optics even early on, and the course has a lot of this orientation of starting with the very basics and then building upon them. So the general pedagogy is guided by that. A lot of...