Tag Archives: Visual acuity

EYE AND ITS VISION-BASIC CLINICAL SCIENCES

Both Light and Sound Have Oscillating Waves

Velocity Travels Through Vacuum? Wavelength Frequency
Light 186,000 miles/sec
(300,000 km/sec)
in vacuum
Yes 400-700 nm 4 X 10^14
to 7 X 10 ^14
cycles/sec
Sound About 700 mph
(about 340 m/sec)
(1 mile per 5 seconds)
in air
No .02 to 20 meters 20-20,000 cycles/sec
  • Sound and light are waves in which the amplitude oscillates with time
    • For pure tones or colors the oscillation is a sine wave with a fixed wavelength and frequency
    • The wavelength is the distance between 2 peaks of the wave

SNELLEN'S CHART-BASIC CLINICAL SCIENCES TUTORIAL

A Snellen chart is an eye chart used by eye care professionals and others to measure visual acuity. Snellen charts are named after the Dutch ophthalmologist Herman Snellen who developed the chart in 1862

The traditional Snellen chart is printed with eleven lines of block letters. The first line consists of one very large letter, which may be one of several letters, for example E, H, N, or A. Subsequent rows have increasing numbers of letters that decrease in size. A patient taking the test covers one eye, and reads aloud the letters of each row, beginning at the top. The smallest row that can be read accurately indicates the patient’s visual acuity in that eye.