Optics for Ophthalmologists

This manual is written to assist the student of optics or the ophthalmology resi­ dent in reviewing optics. It is particularly suitable as an optics Board review. However, it was not intended to accomplish the far greater task of encompassing the entire field of geometric optics or even of teaching all that the ophthalmologist needs to know of visual optics or refraction. This manual represents the distillation of lecture notes for an optics Board-review course given at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear InfIrmary, Harvard Medical School, for the last seven years. This optics lecture series, which has also been given at Boston University and at the University of Southern California, has traditionally taken place over a week, with three two­ hour sessions. Obviously, this six-hour lecture series could not possibly cover the entire field of optics for clinicians. This optics Board-review lecture series has customarily involved a few problems at the end of each lecture which then provided a basis for a review that was given at the beginning of the next lecture. These problems have always proven a useful means of self-testing as well as practice for becoming more comfortable and facile with the concepts involved. The problems have not been taken from the American Board of Ophthalmology test materials, either written or oral. However, they incorporate many of the concepts and computational manipulations which are frequently tested on the ophthalmology boards.