Auditors welcome so long as there is room avaliable.
Scientists have long been fascinated by the workings of vision since the time of Newton, Ramon y Cajal, and Helmholtz, who made pioneering contributions to this field including early color theory, anatomy, and the invention of the ophthalmoscope. Modern neuroscientists studying the visual system have made phenomenal progress in understanding how this incredibly complex yet elegant system transforms light stimuli into a digital electrical signal. Indeed, visual neuroscience requires an understanding of both neurophysiology and physics. This course is for both physics students interested in biophysics and for biology students interested in a quantitative introduction to visual neuroscience. We will begin with an overview of the eye and compare its functioning to that of a camera.