Spherical aberration

Okay kiddo, imagine you have a big magnifying glass that you like to use to look at bugs up close. But sometimes, when you look through the magnifying glass, the bug looks blurry and distorted. This is kind of like spherical aberration.

You see, the magnifying glass is shaped like a round ball, right? Well, sometimes the light coming into the magnifying glass bends too much or too little as it passes through different areas of the curved surface. This can cause the light to scatter and focus in the wrong place, making the image look messed up.

It's like if you wanted to draw a circle, but your crayon went all wonky and made a weird shape instead. That's what happens with light in a magnifying glass with spherical aberration.

Scientists and engineers are always trying to find ways to fix spherical aberration so we can see things more clearly. One way to do this is to use something called an aspheric lens, which is shaped more like a potato than a ball. This special lens can help the light focus better so the image we see is much clearer.