I am in an optics class, and we are using the text "Introduction to Optics" third edition by Pedrotti. The book is completely useless in the course. The questions in the review section of the chapter cannot usually be done with some help from the internet. So I was wondering if anyone had a free text or online resource that would be of any help to some second year physics majors.
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The standard undergraduate textbook is Hecht. It is expensive, but the same author wrote Schaum's Outline of Optics. These books are not (legally) available online for free.
A good free online resource is Georgi's Physics of Waves. This covers waves in general. You'd have to pick up details and optics-specific jargon from Wikipedia.
For a more basic, conceptual introduction, I recommend the relevant chapters from volume 1 of The Feynman Lectures on Physics.
Mark Eichenlaub
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