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OK,  Somebody, maybe one of you guys, is going to have to study the
website that Frank linked to and tell us the answer here.


On Feb 22, 2005, at 10:26 PM, Alexandre Eremenko wrote:

> Frank,
>
>> Imaging resolution in any
>> optrical system is ultimately limited by diffraction
>
> Yes.
> I think some misunderstanding comes
> from your implicit assumption that the
> eye
> is an "optical system":-).
>
> Several participants of this discussion mentioned a
> conjecture that the eye resolution higher than optical
> limit might be due to the eye micro MOTION.
>
> If you take this motion into account, the eye cannot
> be considered
> a purely optical system anymore.
>
> Of course this is only a conjecture, but this is what I had
> in mind when I said that this unusually high resolution
> does not contradict yet the laws of physics.
>
>
> Put in other words, I can easily imagine a mechanism
> which achieves high resolution using an optical system
> of low resolution.
>
> Let me also define what I mean by resolution:
> It is the ability to decide whether the images of two
> points coincide. You don't necessarily have to SEE them as
> separate points when they dont coincide for this.
>
> For example, in the shooter's case, this is the ability
> to decide whether the bullet trajectory will pass through
> the center of the target, though she does not necessarily
> see the center of the target, even less the bullet trajectory.
>
> In the case of measuring star distances with a sextant,
> I can see two stars as one dot, but still understand that
> this dot is somehow "imperfect".
> This really happens when the distance
> is about 0.5' (with my scope).
> But still I somehow can measure
> to 0.1' in many cases.
> Alex.
>

   

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