- #1
FAS1998
- 50
- 1
My understanding of light has been that it travels in a perfectly straight line unless reflected or refracted by some object. Treating light like physical objects (like pool balls bouncing off the sides of a table) has been useful for situations where geometry can be used to find things like phase differences between beams of light.
Huygens principle says that this is incorrect. Light going through a slit will spread out as if each point on the wavefront is a source emitting light in all directions. If we treated light as a physical object in the case of single slit diffraction, we would just see light where the slit is, and see no light where the light is being blocked.
When can/can’t light be treated like physical objects?
Huygens principle says that this is incorrect. Light going through a slit will spread out as if each point on the wavefront is a source emitting light in all directions. If we treated light as a physical object in the case of single slit diffraction, we would just see light where the slit is, and see no light where the light is being blocked.
When can/can’t light be treated like physical objects?