The Hubble Space Telescope has a mirror diameter of 2.4 m. Suppose the telescope is used to photograph stars near the center of our galaxy, 30,000 light years away, using red light with a wavelength of 650 nm. For comparison, what is this distance as a multiple of the distance of Jupiter from the sun?

Alpha Centauri, the nearest star to our solar system, is 4.3 light years away. Assume that Alpha Centauri has a planet with an advanced civilization. Professor Dhg, at the planet’s Astronomical Institute, wants to build a telescope with which he can find out whether any planets are orbiting our sun. Building a telescope of the necessary size does not appear to be a major problem. What practical difficulties might prevent Professor Dhg’s experiment from succeeding?

White light is incident onto a 30° prism at the 40° angle shown in FIGURE P35.41. Violet light emerges perpendicular to the rear face of the prism. The index of refraction of violet light in this glass is 2.0% larger than the index of refraction of red light. At what angle Φ does red light emerge from the rear face?

A beam of white light enters a transparent material. Wavelengths for which the index of refraction is n are refracted at angle θ₂. Wavelengths for which the index of refraction is n + δn, where δn << n, are refracted at angle θ₂ + δθ. A beam of white light is incident on a piece of glass at 30°. Deep violet light is refracted 0.28° more than deep red light. The index of refraction for deep red light is known to be 1.552. What is the index of refraction for deep violet light?

The resolution of a digital camera is limited by two factors: diffraction by the lens, a limit of any optical system, and the fact that the sensor is divided into discrete pixels. Consider a typical point-and-shoot camera that has a 20-mm-focal-length lens and a sensor with 2.5μm x 2.5 μm pixels. What is the f-number of the lens for the diameter you found in part b? Your answer is a quite realistic value of the f-number at which a camera transitions from being pixel limited to being diffraction limited. For f-numbers smaller than this (larger-diameter apertures), the resolution is limited by the pixel size and does not change as you change the aperture. For f-numbers larger than this (smaller-diameter apertures), the resolution is limited by diffraction, and it gets worse as you “stop down” to smaller apertures.

High-power lasers are used to cut and weld materials by focusing the laser beam to a very small spot. This is like using a magnifying lens to focus the sun's light to a small spot that can burn things. As an engineer, you have designed a laser cutting device in which the material to be cut is placed 5.0 cm behind the lens. You have selected a high-power laser with a wavelength of 1.06 μm. Your calculations indicate that the laser must be focused to a 5.0-μm-diameter spot in order to have sufficient power to make the cut. What is the minimum diameter of the lens you must install?

The lens shown in FIGURE CP35.49 is called an achromatic doublet, meaning that it has no chromatic aberration. The left side is flat, and all other surfaces have radii of curvature R. Because of dispersion, either lens alone would focus red rays and blue rays at different points. Define ∆n₁ and ∆n₂ as n_blue - n_red for the two lenses. What value of the ratio ∆n₁ / ∆n₂ makes f_blue = f_red for the two-lens system? That is, the two-lens system does not exhibit chromatic aberration.