What is the effect of increasing the power of a lens?

Increasing the power of a lens directly affects its focal length, specifically causing it to shorten. The power of a lens, measured in diopters, is defined as the reciprocal of the focal length in meters. Therefore, a lens with higher power has a shorter focal length. This relationship is fundamental in optics; as the curvature of the lens increases, the ability to converge or diverge light rays becomes enhanced, resulting in a shorter distance from the lens at which parallel light rays converge (for a converging lens) or from which they appear to diverge (for a diverging lens).

Understanding the implications of this is essential for applications such as corrective eyewear, camera lenses, and various optical instruments. Other choices may relate to various aspects of optics, such as image clarity or distortion, but they do not correctly describe the direct relationship between lens power and focal length. Thus, the correct connection is that increasing lens power leads to a shortening of the focal length.