Talk:Physical optics

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I was capitalizing Physical Optics to make it clear that it is not to be taken literally, but other people thought that was not grammatically correct. Perhaps we should use quotes?--David R. Ingham

The convention is not to capitalize both words. Since you wrote this as an article on a specific approximation within engineering, when physical optics also refers to a large branch of optics, I made the former a section within this article, since the overall article is short. Salsb 23:45, September 8, 2005 (UTC)

I have long realized that physical optics is a confusing term, but I had no idea that it is this confusing. The term was already in use in Wikipedia before I started this article, in the sense I defined as well as in the general physics or optics sense. I had been using capitals to help disambiguate elsewhere before I realized how ambiguous it really is, so I now have gone back to doing so. I know it looks funny. It is the name of something specific so capitals are not ungrammatical. I suggest that something should also be done to disambiguate each time the term is used in another sense. In one place I replaced it with "diffraction".

First the word "physical" is very strange for either an approximation or a subfield, let alone both. Second it is very unusual for a physics term to have two meanings, neither of them literal. Third in optics it usually doesn't matter whether or not one uses the approximation, so the two usages are synonymous often enough for people never to get them straight.

Salsb 18:36, September 9, 2005 (UTC)

It would be clearer to have a disambiguation page but the article is too short for that.

I still think my usage is the preferred one and should not be a sub-heading but that is a small point. --David R. Ingham 16:20, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

It may be strange but look in an optics text, or even an introductory physics text. Physical optics is used predominately in the sense , not in the sense you mean it. The scattering approximation you are referring to is a relatively technical and minor usage of the word. Anyway, I am okay with the status now Salsb 18:36, September 9, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Title of sub-heading

There is still a problem that needs to be fixed before we are done:

People doing optics don't usually think of it as "scattering". Typically Physical Optics is used for things like calculating the resolution of a camera by integrating the field over the lens area. I might call that scattering, but a camera manufacturer would not read my instructions. I will try now to make it more general.