The Physics of Visual Experience

Teacher:  Mick Follari
(Read more about his biography here)

Dates for 4-week course:
T.B.A

Times for Live Sessions:
Monday through Thursday, Starting at 9:30am MT (which is 11am ET and 8am PT). Each live session lasts between 50 and 70 minutes.

Course Description

In this physics course, we take up the subject of our Visual Experience, including attempts to understand the nature of Light and how it interacts with matter. We begin by absorbing and identifying the myriad of visual phenomena available in an everyday experience. From there we investigate and isolate certain aspects of the total experience through various controlled experiments. The outcome of this work is then a lawfulness or relationship that is derived completely from phenomena that can be experienced and thought through by the students.

Traditional optics topics we touch on may include reflection, refraction, total internal reflection, fiber optics, color phenomena, rainbows, imaging (lenses), shadows, diffraction, the wave/particle duality, and possibly an introduction to Relativity Theory, and Quantum Theory.

However, we also look thoroughly at perception, and meet each phenomenon with the questions: “What is real?” and “How do you know?” These questions form the basis for some philosophical discussions about the nature of science and reality. The discussions bring to consciousness the reasons for pursuing physical science in a phenomenological way. This approach necessitates real, deep discussions in class and a sense of questioning, striving, and meeting the world with openness and willingness to think. By beginning with familiar experiences from everyday life, we build up to handling scientific discussions with a level of subtlety that is finally possible in the later years of high school.