Revision as of 02:23, 17 January 2014 edit Srleffler (talk \| contribs) Extended confirmed users, Pending changes reviewers, Rollbackers 45,980 edits The accuracy statement is confusing because it follows the second-order cosine expression immediately with a statement about the first-order approximation, without explanation. The whole approximation either passes or fails. ← Previous edit		Revision as of 13:35, 6 July 2014 edit undo Dratman (talk \| contribs) Extended confirmed users 5,035 edits m split "raytracing" into "ray tracing" for consistency with conventional spelling and earlier link Next edit →
Line 20: :<math>\cos \theta \approx 1</math> The paraxial approximation is used in [[Gaussian optics]] and ''first-order'' ~~raytracing~~ray tracing.<ref name=Greivenkamp/> [[Ray transfer matrix analysis]] is one method that uses the approximation. In some cases, the second-order approximation is also called "paraxial". The approximations above for sine and tangent do not change for the "second-order" paraxial approximation (the second term in their [[Taylor series]] expansion is zero), while for cosine the second order approximation is

Paraxial approximation: Difference between revisions