A closer look
What you can do with Wave & Optics Lab
Wave & Optics Lab is a hands-on optical table in the browser — lay out the apparatus and a live ray tracer does the physics in real time.
Lay out the bench, watch the light respond
Drop lasers, lenses, mirrors, prisms, gratings, slits and polarizers onto the table and a live ray tracer reacts instantly as you move them.
- 25+ pieces of optical apparatus
- Live ray tracer updates as you drag
- Light bends, reflects, disperses and splits
- Snap-to grid and 3D view controls
Real images, real fringes, real numbers
Go beyond rays into wave optics — form images, project interference and diffraction patterns, and read the physics off the table.
- Image formation with construction rays
- Interference and diffraction fringes
- Quantitative readouts — angles, focal lengths
- Dispersion through a prism into a spectrum
Preset experiments and animations
Load ready-made experiments and animated demonstrations, or share a setup so students open exactly what you built.
- Preset experiments across four categories
- Animated demonstrations
- Detailed law and formula cards
- Shareable apparatus layouts
