Physics & Astronomy

Authors: Justin B. Peatross and Michael Ware

The textbook is available in PDF format.  All of the references in the text (e.g. equation, and figures, the table of contents) are linked, so you may go to the reference simply by clicking on it.  We have also made a printed copy available for the cost of printing.  Students in Physics 471 should purchase their copy from the bookstore rather than online.  It is cheaper to get it from the bookstore because they order enough for the whole class and spread the one shipping charge over everybody.  If you order individually it will cost more (with shipping), and you will have to wait a couple weeks to get it.

At BYU we use this book as the text for a senior-level optics course for physics majors. We hope that others will also use the book, and welcome constructive feedback. We revise the text as needed and publish the new version as changes are made (the title page indicates the date of the last revision). The book is electronically available (at no cost) at optics.byu.edu. The authors may be contacted via e-mail at opticsbook@byu.edu. If you use the book, note the following:

• The text may not be sold for profit. If you would like to use it in a class, you may provide copies to the students for the cost of printing.
• Please do not publish solutions to the homework problems.
• Please let us know if you use the text for either personal or classroom study--we would like to know how widely the book is used! 

In addition to the written material, we have developed a series of labs and animations to enhance it. These resources can also be found at optics.byu.edu. This curriculum benefits from a CCLI grant from the National Science Foundation Division of Undergraduate Education (DUE-9952773).

We would like to thank John Colton, Bret Hess, and Harold Stokes for their suggestions that have greatly improved the book.