Huygens Definition and 48 Threads

I learnt that wavefronts can be spherical, cylindrical or planar. But i wonder, if one were to observe light waves of different wavefronts with naked eyes, how would they appear? Would they appear all the same or would there be any difference in how we see them? Just a basic question that I felt...

The image generated by the Giant Irvine pinhole cam is a landscape, with features in top of image and ground/water image on the bottom. Now, directing a small shoebox-type pinhole cam at the lightsource while standing only in the lower part of the image (no bldg. features visible there or...

Hi All, Huygens principle has been extended with two independent efforts in order to reform its original feature that gives rise to a back propagating wave. 1) Fresnel proposed the obliquity factor ##(1/2)(1 + \cos\theta)##. 2) Miller proposed two kinds of emissions (dephased). D. Miller...

Attached is section 33.7 from my book, which introduces Huygen's principle in order to derive the law of reflection. I am more used to the ray model rather than the wave model, so I'm constantly going to try to relate everything back to rays. Making this connection also helps with completeness...

Let's assume a plane wave going in the x-direction. Going by Huygens' principle, each point on the wavefront should act like a source. If that's the case, wouldn't plane wavefront become spherical like shown below? I am so confused

Hi. I was studying Huygens Principle and I learned that diffraction usually occurs more when the slit is comparable in size with the wavelength, and this image does not leave my head: We can see that the "middle" part of the wavefront keeps traveling in the same direction, but the wavefront in...

I was read this article(https://engineering.purdue.edu/wcchew/ece604f19/Lecture%20Notes/Lect31.pdf). I was read this paper about Huygens' principle(https://engineering.purdue.edu/wcchew/ece604f19/Lecture%20Notes/Lect31.pdf) Main idea of Huygens' principle is how wave function ##ψ(r)##...

I have a basic understanding of Huygens principle, but I don't quite understand why sound waves follow huygens principle. When sound travels, particles travel back and fourth in one direction, so how do sound waves end up traveling in all directions after traveling through a slit? Do sound...

Hi, I hope that it's not wrong to ask for this kind of help in this forum. If you don't mind, could you please help me with that name which the presenter says around 46:55 in the video below? One name he says is Cassini but the other name which he says something like "Delawear" I couldn't have...

I know the technical details of why light bends towards "the normal" when meeting a more refractive medium must be complicated. But I was thinking about it in a more lay fashion. I was thinking if the bending can be explained using Christiaan Huygens' principle in that a light front is made of...

When a wave encounters the shallow water of a headland the shallow section slows while the deeper section continues traveling at a faster speed. This causes refraction of the wave ray towards the shallower headland section For wave rays encountering perpendicular a shallow headland does...

Does Hyugens principle apply in three dimensions ? If a surface wave (for simplicity an ocean wave) is propagating along the x-axis we know that this wave ray is a point source for wavelets on the y-axis but what about the z axis? If this diagram was 3d would we see a spherical wave front...

Consider the Kirkoff integral theorem and the Huygens -Fresnel principle/formula (both from Wikipedia): KIT The Kirchoff integral for monochromatic wave is: $$U({\mathbf {r}})={\frac {1}{4\pi }}\int _{S'}\left[U{\frac {\partial }{\partial {\hat {{\mathbf {n}}}}}}\left({\frac...

A spin-off from another thread. I consulted a couple of my GR textbooks on Huygens' principle, and found little. Wiki had a little information, which said that it could be regarded as a consequence of the homogeneity of space-time, and "In 1900, Jacques Hadamard observed that Huygens'...

why only the common tangential surface of the secondary wavelets forms the new wavefront ? what about all the other interferances that might occur between the waves of the secondary sources , like the constructive interferances that occur slightly offside towards the inside of the tangential...

A well known math theorem says that - if the spatial dimension is odd - D'Alembert equation gives rise to a solution containing a term which is completely supported on the light cone. A mathematical wrap up could be the following: "in dimension 3 (and in fact, for all odd dimensions), the...

Hi according to Huygens principle every point on the wave front acts as a spherical source. so if a we emit monochromatic light on a screen without passing light from grating, we should see interference pattern but we don't. why don't these spherical waves interfere with each other? is this...

In finding the angle for the mth dark fringe of single slit diffraction using Huygen's principle, they usually split the slit into equal portions. For example, to find the first dark fringe the slit is split into two equal spacings and if the path difference between the edge and the middle point...

This is the title of a new paper published by two Portuguese scientists (see http://www.nature.com/srep/2015/150723/srep11548/full/srep11548.html or http://www.nature.com/srep/2015/150723/srep11548/pdf/srep11548.pdf). They developed a math model of the synchronization of the two clocks and the...

Hi all, I have the next dude: To utilize the Huygens principle at the boundary of a volume, do we need to know precisely material properties inside the volume? Thanks!

Hi All, Is it correct to apply Huygens Principle to a situation in which a wave propagates in a string with fixed ends? I know Huygens principle is related to regular propagation e superposition properties of waves, and all these can be found in the string context, but I am not sure this...

This question is prompted by a recent discussion I have been following regarding the insertion of a 45 degree angle polariser between two polarisers at 90 degrees to each other. The insertion of the filter seems to restore missing components which would suggest that those components were present...

"Huygens' ingenious idea, which he put into practice, was to vary the eective length of the pendulum by allowing its cord to wrap partially around an obstruction as it swings" the coordinates of cycloid are: x=a(\theta -\sin \theta) y=a(\cos \theta +1) why in somes articles, they use the...

Huygens' belief was that every wave is made up of smaller wavelets, which are basically circles. I was wondering, is the radius of these wavelets equal to the length of the wavelength of its wave? I have another related question: If a wave is passing through a slit, what is the maximum...

Hello, I have the following question: Physics books say that in order to see diffraction you need a wave to encounter an object that is comparable in size to the wavelength. This is presumably the reason why light does not bend through an opened door but sound does. My question is, what...

eyepiece -- Huygens versus Ramsden Hi,can someone explain me this picture? : http://www.accessscience.com/search.aspx?rootID=792797 I don't understand,what it means,Im reading the description,but it doesn t help me.It looks,like if I use Huygens eyepiece we get virtual image,and if I use...

IS huygens principle a consequence of isotropy of space? According to wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huygens%E2%80%93Fresnel_principle it is I don't really understand this : let's say a sound wave , a vibrator pushes the air molecule does this mean that molecule vibrates in all...

Can someone tell me how Feynman’s many-paths differs from Huygens’ principle? Huygens: “All points on a wavefront can be considered as point sources for the production of spherical secondary wavelets. After a time t the new position of the wavefront will be the surface of tangency to these...

Hi there I'm having some real trouble answering photonics questions that require the use of Huygens construction. For example if I was asked Compare with the help of Huygen's constructions the propagation of o- and e- components of light through a material with ne and no are 1.55336, and...

The incompleteness of Huygens principle has been discussed at length here and elsewhere, and has actually been completed, regarding wave propagation and refraction, relatively shortly afterwards (by Kirchhoff and Fresnel). This post is specifically about reflection, and should you be familiar...

Homework Statement a)What is the time t_B it will take for point B of the wavefront to encounter the vacuum/material interface? Express your answer numerically to two decimal places in units of t_1 (the time it takes light to travel a distance d in a vacuum). Homework Equations n=c/v ...

Short question, but I can't figure it out - when we have a diffraction on any obstacle, which is construction of spherical Huygens waves, why the situation presents as it is shown on the first picture and not like on the second picture, what could actually be expected, as we consider spherical...

Hi All, In wave theory, we learn that Huygens' principle apply and that every point in a wave front acts like it was a source. According to this, it seems that from a given wave front we would see, after some small time interval, not only the the propagated wave front but another one...

Hello, I'm pondering on why bending occurs most when the width of the aperture is close to the wavelength of the propagating wave. According to Huygen's principle, should'nt there be point sources around the edges of an aperture regardless of the width and thus the bending propagate to...

I am having difficulty accepting an illustration from a physics textbook. The illustration is attached. For part (b), the authors state that hec is a right triangle. Also, the wavefront (cg) is clearly not parallel to the wavefront (he). However, isn't this impossible? If point (c) on the...

Hello Does anyone know where can I find a derivation (or approximation) for Huygens principle from more "basic" principles? (i.e from the wave equation and\or Maxwell's equations) Thanks

I wonder why the amplitude of Huygens' wavelet is equal to the amplitude of incident wave multimpled by i / \lambda. I found this formula in 'Modern Optics' by Guenther p. 335 unfortunately without proof. Has anyone seen the derivation of this fact. Could you recommend me some good books in...

A conceptual problem for me anyway! In the standard texts a Huygens construction is used to explain the diffraction pattern from a single slit. However it is not used in the explanations for double (or multiple slits). What is the justification for this ... the double slit pattern should be...

How can empty space act as individual point sources as in sinle slit diffraction?

Homework Statement Hi all. Please take a look at the uploaded picture. Can you guys tell me what happens to the green part that I've marked? Do they go to amplitude = 0 because of destructive interference or what?

Hi all "The Huygens-principle recognizes that each point of an advancing wave front is in fact the center of a fresh disturbance and the source of a new train of waves; and that the advancing wave as a whole may be regarded as the sum of all the secondary waves arising from points in the...

Ok, so Huygens described light as a wave. So my question is how does his wave theory explain the phenonmenon of dispersion? What happens when a wave of light hits a prism? How does while light split into the different colours os a rainbow? Also another question I have is about Maxwell's...

Can someone please explain this ? Let's say u have a slit through which waves have to pass . In order to have a difraction why does the slit have to be comparable with the wavelenghth ? It states this in every book and says that it's demonstrable using Huygens principle . I know...

Huygens' theory says that every point on a wavefront serves as a source of secondary wavelet. Doesn't that imply that if we consider any coherent source of light, and intercept its waves on a screen, we'll get a diffraction pattern, as all those secondary wavelets will interfere among themselves?

i just learned this in physics, and i don't quite understand something: according to Huygens, (i think) light is a ciruclar wave, and at everypoint on the wave there are wavelets. because there are so many ways for the wavelets to form, light takes every possible path from point a to point b...

So, I notice in the animations of Huygens, they seem to suggest the probe enters the atmosphere more or less vertically, as opposed to almost horizontally, as in the case of re-entry of Earth-based vehicles. While I grant the the animations are idealized, I thought that perhaps it might be...

http://www.fileplace.info/14012005/3697.jpg This creature has been spotted by the Huygens probe in the surface of Titan... Now is clear that the next objective of such abject monsters will be the invasion of Earth. I think that I'm going to hide myself in my underground hideaway...

Bets for Friday? Solid planetfall? Liquid planetfall? Equipment failure?