Chapter 38, Problem 38.23P

Impressionist painter Georges Seurat created paintings with an enormous number of dots of pure pigment, each of which was approximately 2.00 mm in diameter. The idea was to have colors such as red and green next to each other to form a scintillating canvas, such as in his masterpiece, A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte (Fig. P37.15). Assume λ = 500 nm and a pupil diameter of 5.00 mm. Beyond what distance would a viewer be unable to discern individual dots on the canvas?

Figure P37.15