When an Electronics Technician is given the RMS
value of a waveform other than a square wave, and wants to know the Peak-to-Peak
equivalent, he or she multiplies the RMS value by twice the square root of two.
Applying this to a RMS Wavefront Error of 0.0721
gives: 0.0721 * 2 * 1.4142 = 0.2008 the Average Peak-to-Valley fraction
of the specified wavelength of light for the test. Unfortunately, the worst
case Peak and worst case Valley are lost in the average.
Now the wavelength of light used for the test
is given as 633 nanometers, which is a deep visible Red that is longer than the
Yellowish-Green light at 550 nanometers where our vision peaks. The actual
measurement of the wavefront error is then 0.2008 of 633e-9 = 127.118e-9 meters
or 0.1271 micrometers. Expressed as a fraction of light at 550 nanometers, this
works out to 127.118e-9 / 550e-9 = 0.2311, which is approximately 10/43 as a
common fraction that can be reduced to 1/4.3 or
1/4 by rounding off the denominator. Thus an RMS Wavefront
Error of 1/14 @ 633 nanometers equals a Peak-to-Valley Wavefront Error of 1/4
@ 550 nanometers.