Explaining his results by interference of the waves emanating from the two different slits, he deduced that light must propagate as waves. In 1803 Thomas Young did his famous experiment observing diffraction from two closely spaced slits. James Gregory (1638–1675) observed the diffraction patterns caused by a bird feather, which was effectively the first diffraction grating. Isaac Newton studied these effects and attributed them to inflexion of light rays. The results of Grimaldi's observations were published posthumously in 1665. The effects of diffraction of light were first carefully observed and characterized by Francesco Maria Grimaldi, who also coined the term diffraction, from the Latin diffringere, 'to break into pieces', referring to light breaking up into different directions. Sound waves can diffract around objects, this is the reason we can still hear someone calling us even if we are hiding behind a tree.ĭiffraction can also be a concern in some technical applications it sets a fundamental limit to the resolution of a camera, telescope, or microscope. Ocean waves diffract around jetties and other obstacles. All these effects are a consequence of the fact that light is a wave.ĭiffraction can occur with any kind of wave. A shadow of a solid object, using light from a compact source, shows small fringes near its edges. Diffraction in the atmosphere by small particles can cause a bright ring to be visible around a bright light source like the sun or the moon. This principle can be extended to engineer a grating with a structure such that it will produce any diffraction pattern desired the hologram on a credit card is an example. The most colorful examples of diffraction are those involving light for example, the closely spaced tracks on a CD or DVD act as a diffraction grating to form the familiar rainbow pattern we see when looking at a disk. The effects of diffraction can be readily seen in everyday life. 5.1 Diffraction from an array of narrow slits or a grating. 5 Quantitative description of diffraction.4 Qualitative observations of diffraction.1 Examples of diffraction in everyday life.
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