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Home Q & A Board Science-Related Homework Help Physics
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ritamsh ritamsh
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11 years ago
I've just finished a Physics degree, but have realised I still don't understand why waves diffract! I've spent my whole time thinking in terms of Huygens wavelets and Fourier transforms, but can't actually say why we see diffraction in the first place! Why do we have the obliquity factor, for example??
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#1
11 years ago
You might be interested in the paper "Obliquity Factor Is Not Essential To The Huygens-Fresnel Principle" by A. R. Jadhav and S. R. Kajale.  It's a trick of mathematics whose limitations must be understood.  One can always go back to the differential wave equations, which are accurate and do not include an obliquity factor.  The way to understand how waves work is to learn the derivations of the wave equations.  See the Feynman Lectures on Physics for an excellent discussion of these.
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#2
11 years ago
Imagine a crowd of people moving toward a wall with a small door.  Do you think the people would stay bunched together after they pass through the door or would they spread out.  Waves do the same thing, they expand to fill the available space.  This is why the ripples from a stone in water forms expanding rings.
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