Table of Opticks, 1728 Cyclopaedia

Optics (from ὀπτική, appearance or look in Ancient Greek) is the science that describes the behavior and properties of light and the interaction of light with matter. Optics explains optical phenomena.

The field of optics usually describes the behavior of visible, infrared, and ultraviolet light; however because light is an electromagnetic wave, similar phenomena occur in X-rays, microwaves, radio waves, and other forms of electromagnetic radiation and analogous phenomena occur with charged particle beams. Optics can largely be regarded as a sub-field of electromagnetism. Some optical phenomena depend on the quantum nature of light relating some areas of optics to quantum mechanics. In practice, the vast majority of optical phenomena can be accounted for using the electromagnetic description of light, as described by Maxwell's Equations.

The field of optics has its own identity, societies, and conferences. The pure science aspects of the field are often called optical science or optical physics. Applied optical sciences are often called optical engineering. Applications of optical engineering related specifically to illumination systems are called illumination engineering. Each of these disciplines tends to be quite different in its applications, technical skills, focus, and professional affiliations. More recent innovations in optical engineering are often categorized as photonics or optoelectronics. The boundaries between these fields and "optics" are often unclear, and the terms are used differently in different parts of the world and in different areas of industry.

Because of the wide application of the science of "light" to real-world applications, the areas of optical science and optical engineering tend to be very cross-disciplinary. Optical science is a part of many related disciplines including electrical engineering, physics, psychology, medicine (particularly ophthalmology and optometry), and others. Additionally, the most complete description of optical behavior, as known to physics, is unnecessarily complicated for most problems, so particular simplified models are used. These limited models adequately describe subsets of optical phenomena while ignoring behavior irrelevant and/or undetectable to the system of interest.