Medical Physics

This elective is concerned with the basic physics principles underlying human vision and hearing to make sense of the environment.

It begins by considering the structures of the eye and its optical system for adjusting to different object distances. Defects of vision and the study of their corrections are introduced. Resolution is introduced to explain the fineness of detail discernible by the eye.

The question of how colour vision is generated leads to the study of the rods and cones in the retina. Rods are responsible for vision in dim light while cones are responsible for the more acute vision experienced in ordinary daylight conditions.

A brief look at the structure of the ear serves to introduce students to concepts of transferring energy using a transducer and how different frequencies of sound waves are discriminated in the inner ear.