Divergence

Simple Negative Lenses (also called diverging lenses) are thicker at the edges than at the center. A negative lens alone cannot form a real image as a positive lens does. Light passing through a negative lens parallel to the optic axis is bent away from the axis. The focal point of the negative lens is located by extending these diverging rays backward until they cross the axis. The image formed by a diverging lens is always virtual, uptight, and smaller and closer to the lens than the object. Negative lenses are used to reduce images, to correct nearsightedness and to construct compound lenses. [pg. 66] [Light and Color, by Clarence Rainwater, Prof. of Physics, San Francisco State College, Original Project Editor Herbert S. Zim, Golden Press, NY, Western Publishing Company, Inc., 1971.]

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Divergence n [1656] 1a: a drawing apart [as of lines extending from a common center] b: Difference, Disagreement c: the acquisition of dissimilar characters by related organisms in unlike environments 2: a deviation from a course or standard 3: the condition of being mathematically divergent

Divergent adj [L divergent-, divergens, prp. of divergere] [1696] 1a: diverging from each other b: differing from each other or from a standard: Deviant [the _- interests of capital and labor] 2: relating to or being an infinite sequence that does not have a limit or an infinite series whose partial sums do not have a limit 3: causing divergence of rays [a __ lens] -syn see Different