Huygens’ Construction

Huygens’ construction is a method developed by Christiaan Huygens to explain how wavefronts propagate.

Huygens proposed that every point on a wavefront acts as a source of new waves.

These new waves, called wavelets, spread out in spheres at the speed of light.

The new wavefront is then formed by the envelope of these wavelets.

This construction helps us visualize how waves move through space and interact with objects. When a light wave strikes a barrier with two slits, each slit becomes a new source of wavelets. The overlapping wavelets from the two slits create an interference pattern on a screen placed behind the barrier. This explains the light and dark bands observed in Young’s experiment.

Huygens’ construction is useful for understanding wave propagation and the wave behavior of sound and water waves.

Wave Theory of Light

Wave theory of light postulates that a light source emits light waves that spread in all directions. A light wave on striking a mirror gets reflected according to the angles but with each wave turned back to front, it produces a reversed image. In this article, we will explore wave theory of light along with the history of wave theory of light. Also, we will discuss Huygen’s wave theory of light and its construction. Let’s start our learning on the topic “Wave Theory of Light.”

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