Similar effects occur when light waves travel through a medium with a varying refractive index, resulting in a spectrum of color or a distorted image. Ever notice how the outer edges do not appear solid, but slightly fuzzy instead? This occurs as a result of light bending slightly as it passes around the edge of an object, again, consistent with the behavior of a wave. Young, and those who repeated the experiment, found that interference waves resulted, meaning that two propagation waves occurred which then began to interfere with one another.Ī more common example comes to us in the form of shadows. The experiment was even more interesting when a second slit was cut into the screen (hence the name double-slit). Instead of appearing in the same relative shape as the aperture, the light appeared to be diffracting, implying that it was made up of waves. The results were interesting, to say the least. light of a single color) through an aperture (in this case, a wall with a horizontal slits cut in it) and measured the results on a screen located on the other side. Refraction of light is the most commonly observed phenomenon, but other waves such as sound waves and water waves also experience refraction. In this experiment, Young shone a monochromatic light source (i.e. One such physicist who observed this at work was Thomas Young (1773 – 1829), an English polymath who is credited devised the double-slit experiment. Diffraction is the slight bending of light as it passes around the edge of an object. It had long been understood that this is what happens when a wave encounters an obstacle, and by the 17th and 18th centuries, this behavior was observed through experiments involving light. So you can imagine how confounded they were when, in the course of performing experiments, they discovered that it exhibited the behavior of both a particle and a wave! This rather unique behavior, the ability of light to behave as a wave, even though it is made up of tiny particles, is known as the Diffraction of Light.īy definition, diffraction refers to the apparent bending of waves around small obstacles and the spreading out of waves past small openings. The light waves will be traveling the same distance, so they will be traveling the. Think of the point exactly between the two slits. In many situations, the wavelengths of the light being studied are very small compared to the dimensions of the equipment used to study the light. Light is a transverse electromagnetic wave.
#DIFFRACTION OF LIGHT IN WATER PLUS#
For destructive interference it will be an integer number of whole wavelengths plus a half wavelength. In classical physics, we can classify optical phenomena into one of two categories: ray optics and wave optics.
However, with the advent of quantum physics, scientists came to realize that photons, a tiny elementary particle responsible for all forms of electromagnetic radiation, was in fact the source. For constructive interference, the difference in wavelengths will be an integer number of whole wavelengths. Initially, and in accordance with classic physics, light was thought to be a wave, an indefinable form of energy that simply flowed from a heated source. For some time, the behavior of light has baffled scientists.
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