[ATM] Diffraction spikes, physics

[Mark Holm <mdholm@telerama.com>]

Jim Burrows wrote:

>Imagine the light waves impinging on the spider.  The way the waves get to 
>be zero amplitude (absorbed) by the spider is to generate Huygens wavelets 
>of opposite phase at the spider.  These wavelets spread out, interfering 
>with the incoming light, and produce the spikes on the image plane.  Less 
>light in the wavelets means dimmer spikes, and thinner spiders mean less 
>light in the wavelets.
>

Too bad Feinman is dead.  Would have been great to hear his explanation 
of this sort of diffraction in quantum mechanical terms.

Functionally, the predicted result from quantum mechanics and wave 
mechanics for this type of problem is close to exactly the same, but the 
quantum mechanical explanation is way crazier.  Or maybe not, wave 
mechanics isn't all that obvious either.  It's just easier to describe 
wave mechanics using the kind of math in the standard curriculum.

Mark Holm

mdholm@telerama.com

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