List of supplementary HW. Please look up and try to understand the concept and give a one paragraph summary.
The purpose of this is to learn about these topics not to master them.
as this list will be updated please check occasionally.

-How do photo multiplier tubes work
-Frame rate on new TVs/ laptop refresh rates - is ti hype or real?
-Resolution of orbiting satellite (2-4 m dia mirror) versus resolution of Predator UAV
-nonlinear crystals in optics - what ar e they used for? What are they made of?
-Solar constant above/below atmosphere and atmospheric transmission vs wavelength?
-How much current will kill you?
-What is highest flux of EM wave we can produce (look up spot size of most powerful laser  [at LLNL])
-Vacuum pair production in E field/ How does black hole/g field produce pairs?
-Look up optical response of rods and cones in the eye
-Survey lumens per watt of light bulbs (hang out at hardware store)
-Look up current max efficiency for LED lighting - look up blue, green , red and white efficiency lumens/w
-Look up global energy budget - how many watts do we use and in what sectors (heating, lighting, transportation ...)
-Look up Keck telescope, 30 m telescope, and the Extremely Large Telescope (ELT)
-How well do we know the charges of e- and p+ are the same?
-Is Planck's constant constant? - Look up current research and some evidence it might not be - is it conclusive?
-Look up "fine structure constant" - any evidence it has changed over the course of the universe?
-Look up solar sail and how to make it. What would you use to make a  solar sail (reflective/metal)? Design one.
-What are multilayer dielectric coated reflectors
-Look up x ray mirrors - how are they made? What are the various types and what are they used for?

-Speed of light in alcohol (ethanol)
-Look up nuclear reactor core cooling in water - why does it glow? What color does it appear - why?
-Cerenkov radiation
-Shock waves - under what circumstances do they form? Find examples of acoustic, material and EM shock waves.
-Analyze the case or the vacuum matched to a load to find the maximum coupling. What impedance load maximizes it?
-Look up waves in water and why are they called "gravity waves"? How does wave speed vary with amplitude? Give examples.
-Negative Index of refraction materials.
-Dyson spheres.
-CAT scans - how do they work and what is the reconstruction mathematics.
-Test patterns on television - why were they used? How are they used today?
-Test patterns and optical system as related to MTF.
-Rayleigh criterion in resolution
-Scanning optical microscopy - sub wavelength imaging - what are the current limits?
-Super resolution in optical systems 
-Maximum entropy and Lucy-Richardson algorithms for reconstruction
-Look up the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) optical problems and how were they "fixed" - COSTAR.
-Before the "optical fix" of the HST how were reconstruction algorithms used?
-Look up Point Source Function - PSF.
-Look at your laser or ink jet printer - how many dots per inch. What sets the limit
-Look at optical scanners and find the typical limit in terms of DPI. How does this relate to te MTF in Code V?
-Look up F# of common lenses and find the costs versus F# for 35 m camera lenses. Why does the cost go up so rapidly when F# decreases.
-Study cell phone cameras and look up the details specs of the pixel size and optics. Is a 5 MP cell phone camera justified?
-Look up Samsung Omnia cell phone camera and discuss this in terms of MTF issues.
-Look up Semiconductor Road Map and where are we now. Where are we going in the next 10 years. 
-Limits of photolithography - how is it used in the semiconductor industry and nano electronics.
-Look up optical (visible, UV and X-Ray) photolithography vs electron beam lithography. How are they used in our life.
-Quadrature optical encoders - how are they made - what are they used for, Find an example in your home or nearby.
-Moores law - what is it
-Shannon information theorm and entropy - why is it relevant in optics and communications. Give examples.
-What are optical shadow masks and how are they used in industry?
-Why does a Nikon, Canon DSLR camera with 10 MP cost so much more than a 5 MP cell phone camera or a webcam?
-Go visit a high end camera shop in town and talk to them about lenses and costs.
-Try to find the MTF of a commercial lens either from the manufacturer or from photography magazine reviews.

-Microlens and Kodak CCD sensors. How do the micro lenses help improve performance? How do they make millions per CCD so cheaply?
-Understand the charge Well depth in CCD and CMOS sensors. How is this related to a capacitor? Why is the typical commercial CCD/CMOS well depth < 100,000 electroncs?
-How good does the Charge transfer efficiency for CCD have to be and how is it made so well?
-Look up the class of transparent electrical conductors used on the front (illuminated) side of CCD - ITO (Indium Tin Oxide?)
-Aether and drag
-Michelson-Morley experiment and the beginnings of relativity
-How fast does the earth revolve around the sun
-Vacuum creation of particles - pair production
-Casimir effect
-Vacuum polarization and the speed of light
-LHC, Stanford linear collider
-General relativity energy conservation (why isnt it conserved?)
-e folding height in the Earth's atmosphere for O2, N2 and H2O
-Adaptive optics and how they are used on the Keck telescope. Look up laser artificial star.
-JWST
-Airborne laser anti-ballistic missile systems
-Speed of virtual photons through forbidden/tunneling regions
-Find material with n=42
-How are fiber optics made? Look up cladding - stepped vs graded fiber optics
-Plot angle versus wavelength for a real prism. Choose your apex angle to be reasonable. Perhaps find one in a store.
-celestron and Meade telescopes and the use of the corrector plate - Use of refractive optical elements on reflecting telescopes
-Look up how soft and hard X ray (refers to energy) mirrors are made
-Multi layer dielectric mirrors - why can they be much higher refectivity than metal coated mirrors?