The importance of a regular discipline of optics in an undergraduate course of physics: more than 30 years experience in the Physics Institute of the State University of Rio de Janeiro

摘要

The importance of teaching Optics as a regular discipline in an undergraduate course of Physics is presented. The philosophic reasons that motivated us to introduce Optics as a regular discipline in the early '70s are established and problems and difficulties to support this decision are discussed. The evolution of curricula in the last thirty-four years is briefly showed and reasons to have done some changes are presented. The consequences and a few comparisons with some other regular courses of Physics in Brazil are presented and discussed.