The French postimpressionist artist Georges Seurat

Chapter 27, Problem 27.23

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The French postimpressionist artist Georges Seurat developed a painting technique in which dots of color are placed close together on the canvas. From sufficiently far away the individual dots are not distinguishable, and the images in the picture take on a more normal appearance. Figure 27.31 shows a person in a museum looking at one of Seurats paintings. Suppose that the person stands close to the painting, then backs up until the dots just become indistinguishable to his eyes and takes a picture from this position. The light enters his eyes through pupils that have diameters of 2.5 mm and enters the digital camera through an aperture, or opening, with a diameter of 25 mm. He then goes home and prints an enlarged photograph of the painting. Can he see the individual dots in the photograph? (a) No, because if his eye cannot see the dots at the museum, the camera is also unable to record the individual dots. (b) Yes, because the camera gathers light through a much larger aperture than does the eye. (c) Yes, because, unlike the eye, a photograph taken by a camera is not limited by the effects of diffraction.

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