A eye pupil of 1 cm diameter can resolve about what angle in radians?
First of all I don't understand what they mean by resolve. Resolve the light coming into the eye?
In the context of vision, "resolve" refers to the ability of the eye to distinguish or separate two closely spaced objects. In other words, it is a measure of how much detail the eye can perceive. When we say that the eye can resolve a certain angle, it means that our eyes can differentiate two objects when they are at least that far apart angularly.
To calculate the angle that the eye can resolve, we can use the concept of angular resolution. Angular resolution is the smallest angle between two objects that can still be distinguished by the eye. It depends on the diameter of the pupil and the wavelength of light.
The formula to calculate the angular resolution is:
Angular Resolution (in radians) = 1.22 * (Wavelength of light) / (Diameter of pupil)
In this case, let's assume that we're considering visible light with a wavelength of 500 nanometers (or 5 x 10^-7 meters) and a pupil diameter of 1 cm (or 0.01 meters).
Substituting the values into the formula:
Angular Resolution = 1.22 * 5 x 10^-7 / 0.01
Calculating this gives us:
Angular Resolution ≈ 6.1 x 10^-6 radians
So, a pupil diameter of 1 cm can resolve an angle of approximately 6.1 x 10^-6 radians. This means that the eye can distinguish two objects as long as they are separated by an angle greater than this value.