Talk:Huygens–Fresnel principle/Archives/2021

Criticism

A bit of a crap description, in my view at least. Put simply, Huygen's Principle is that a wave front can be thought of as infinite amount of point sources that produce spherical disturbances that reinforce to produce the secondary wavefront and so on. Although the author mentions how it is related to diffraction, he/she fails to explain how in any significant depth. I feel that too many people on Wikipedia (as brilliant a resource as it is) try to sound clever by using fancy language which at most times is inappropriate. (posted anonymously, 21:21, 2 June 2005 129.67.48.245)

Be more specific in your critique

Actually I found this explanation fine, and I find Wikipedia to be a good resource in addition to others.

Although I understand your complaint in general, as this does happen (see next paragraph), you yourself did not add any value at all to the definition, nor go into even a decent level of detail on expanding the problems you had with it. Simplicity is good; but you still have to be artful in getting your point across. You didn't imho.

To add your own perspective is fine, but to blurt a brief complaint that has no depth or richness itself, frankly just makes you appear as actually the very kind of person that exploits what nominal personal knowledge you have on a subject for reasons of poor self-confidence.

Try to add useful criticisms with some depth instead of coming off, shall we say, a bit unpleasant?

mmf 06:30, 8 November 2005 (UTC) mmf

FWIW, I think the description (as of Jul 2007) is really rather good. ErkDemon 17:23, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Query

I recently added a short section on the connection between Huygens Principle and the Greens function method. For classical and modern physics, the Huygens Principle and its connection to the Greens Function method is tremendously important. A good reference is The Mathematical Theory of Huygens' Principle (Paperback) by Bevan B. Baker, E. T. Copson. The section was removed without explanation. I do not want to add it again without discussion. Best, Rb

I didn't actually remove it, I integrated it into the previous section. I agree the connection is really important, and I'm glad you brought it up, I just think the current version reads easier. It seemed strange to have a separate section for 2 or 3 sentences. If you plan on expounding, by all means readd it.--Hyandat 19:57, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Link?

Thanks Hyandat, I just hadn't noticed. The article on Huygens himself does not mention the principle. Should a link be added there? Best, Rb

Apostrophe or Hyphen has got to go

Shouldn't it be Huygens-Fresnel principle? Huygens' Principle makes sense, but when compounded the possessive should be on either both names (awkward, probably Huygens' and Fresnel's principle), or neither (the Huygens-Fresnel principle). If this is actually a "Fresnel principle" that belongs to Huygens, then the hyphen is wrong (Huygens' Fresnel principle). I'm not correcting this because I don't know the correct expression. edgarde 20:42, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Nope its Huygens-Fresnel Principle, I spent 2 months studying it at university! Rob.derosa 12:19, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for fixing this. edgarde 06:10, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

di Groot's comment

[note by Siward de Groot: i do not agree with the claim that "the same is true of light passing the edge of an obstacle", because if light passes a narrow slit in vacuum, it causes diffraction bands, but there is no matter in the slit to act as secondary source of light. Rather, the explanation in this case is that:

if an (infinitely large) metal screen is between a source of light and a white wall, then there will be no light falling on the wall. This is because the electromagnetic force of the light acts on the wall, and it also acts on the metal shield, where it gives rise to a secondary electromagnetic force, that is the exact opposite of the original stimulus, so that on the light side of the screen reflected light is apparent, while on the wall side of the screen primary and secondary forces cancel out, so it is dark there.

The secundary force is due to the combined effect of all atoms of the screen. Now if a slit is made in this screen, all parts of this screen still experience the same primary stimulus, and therefore produce the same secondary response, except for the atoms that previously were where now the slit is. Thus the resulting lightness on the wall equals the secondary emission previously caused by these atoms, multiplied by -1 , for every point in time.

It is for this reason that the amplitude of the light apparent on that wall can be computed as if it were caused by secondary sources of light in the slit.]

Moved by --Hyandat 17:52, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Fourier transforms

Enormousdude, this section you're editing has more fundamental problems. First the Psi(r) should not be a function of r, but of the field location where you want the result (call it x or something); the r gets integrated out. Second, the integral assumes the functions add up all in the same direction, omitting the cos(theta) that Joe Goodman shows, here on page 66. Perhaps that's why it's a far-field approximation? It's not because all the points in the aperture are in phase; that works for near-field just as well, I think. How it becomes a Fourier transform is not explained at all; it comes from the x ocations off axis corresponding to gradients in r that through the exponential make the varying-frequency sinusoids. So you need to say something about how the r pattern depends on the field location x to get from far-field approximation to Fourier transform. The r in the denominator has negligible variation in the far field, which is why you end up with just the FT of the aperture shape. Dicklyon 00:30, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Direction dependance

As I understand it, the circular wavefronts coming from the infinity of points have different amplitude in different directions. In particular, if they have an amplitude of 1 in the forward direction it will be 0 in the reverse direction and in general have an amplitude of $(1+\cos \theta )/2$. 155.212.242.34 (talk) 20:49, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Reference

I am thinking about putting Max Born's book Principles of Optics: Electromagnetic Theory of Propagation, Interference and Diffraction of Light under a new reference section because the book offers some good explanations about Huygens-Fresnel Principle. Bchen4 15:38, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

I added a references section. But don't just add the book there; use it to add or support something in the article, and put it in a footnote. Let us know if you need help. Dicklyon (talk) 16:14, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

I have added a reference - it is a rather elderly optics book, but this is not a problem except that it may be hard to come by. I think Born and Wolf would be an excellent source - I do not, however, have a copy to hand and would not want to add the reference without being able to see the words directly in front of me. Epzcaw (talk) 19:15, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

I have now (some years on) added a section, as promised, called 'Mathematical expression of the principle' which is based on Born & Wolf's treatment - mathematically identical (as you would expect) to all the other optics textbooks that cover the subject that I have looked at. Epzcaw (talk) 08:31, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

Merge with diffraction

I beleive that most of what is in this article is either in, or should be in the diffraction article. Epzcaw (talk) 20:35, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

That may be so. But a separate article on this principle still makes sense, especially since it's so useful in general optical problems, as a way to explain rays, Snell's law, etc., not just diffraction. Dicklyon (talk) 20:58, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean by 'this principle'. Huygens-Fresnel principle is the the idea that each point on a wavefront is a source of secondary waves, which means that a wave is 'diffracted' rather than travelling a set of rays and does, as you say, explain many of the interesting things about how waves propagate, including a waves travelling through a slit, a circular aperture, a grating, a refracting medium and a lens, a wave interacting with a rough surface and a mirror surface, the changing profile of a laser beam, the structure of a focused laser beam, the otuput of an ultrasonic transducer, the receiving field of a radio wave antenna, etc. etc.

I think there is a lot of misunderstanding about diffraction - it is described by many people as 'the way light is bent when it encounters an obstacle', but diffraction, as defined by teh Huygens-Fresnel, or Fraunhoffer, or any other diffraciton integral, relates not just to this but to general wave propagation.

Perhaps the problem lies in the definition of diffraction. Epzcaw (talk) 23:47, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

No, there's no problem with diffraction. My point is that the H-F principle also explains the normal straight-line propagation of light, the reflection and refraction of rays, and stuff like that that is not generally considered under "diffraction". Huygens even used it to explain the anomalous refraction of Iceland spar. Dicklyon (talk) 00:07, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

'Stuff that is not normally considered under 'diffraction' is exactly my point. Huygens-Fresnel IS diffraction; the Huyges-Fresnel and diffraction articles have several items in common, and rightly so, so shouldn't they be one and the same, and should include all the aspects mentioned above, or perhaps link to new pages covering specific aspects. Diffraction is nto some magical thing that happens when a wave hits an object, it is an in-built feature of wave propagation.

I will maybe have a go at drafting something on my user page, and you could comment on that. But for a week or twoEpzcaw (talk) 06:59, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Have changed my mind about merge - have redited 'Diffraction' in such a way that this article does not overlap significantly. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Epzcaw (talk • contribs) 17:10, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Wavefronts

The term "wavefront" is not at all well defined. 3piecesuits (talk) 16:11, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Classical wave theory approach

The Huygen-Fresnel principle might well now be a "method of analysis" but it is also a fundamental building block of classical wave theory, to state "Huygens principle follows formally from the fundamental postulate of quantum electrodynamics" is chronologically misleading in the extreme, the principle itself can be used to derive Snell's law and this was fundamentally important to the wide acceptance of a wave theory of light pre wave-particle duality. Whilst reformulating all physics as following from quantum theory is commedable it is hardly helpful when people wish to investigate a more historical evolution. Perhaps acknowledging its historical uses as well as its modern applications would be appropriate considering the number of people who use wikipedia as a resource for rather lower level work than fourier optics? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 144.173.54.122 (talk) 16:25, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

I would like to add to this comment. It is misleading to imply that historically important aspects of classical wave theory are quantum-theoretical in nature. Actually, it is convenient, within quantum theory, to treat the electromagnetic field classically, and insert the quantum-theoretical photon anhillation and creation operators later when needed [J.A. Wheeler, Mathematical Foundations of Quantum Mechanics, edited by A.R. Marlow (New York, Academic Press, 1978), pp. 15-16]. (Wheeler cited Heisenberg and Pauli regarding this.)

(Being somewhat illiterate of the intricacies of adding comments, I apologize if this is not the right way of inserting my comment. I hope this spurs someone to make the indicated corrections.) James R. Johnston, Ph.D. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.130.242.67 (talk) 08:50, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

I totally agree, I think that it is not only historically incorrect, but also physically incorrect. Diffraction also occurs in other classical waves, like sound, waves in water, not just light and matter. I think it is not necessary to introduce QED in order to demonstrate the Huygens-Fresnel principle. I've never actually demonstrated it, but I think it should be demonstrable just by using the wave equations, by thinking in the characteristic lines of the parabolic differential equation that "propagate" the wave in every direction, or something like that. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.21.226.231 (talk) 01:45, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Expansion of article

I have expanded the article to include detail about Huygen's work, and Fresnel's development of it. I have also explained the limitations of the Huygens-Fresnel principle - it is not very satisfactory, as it involves several arbitrary assumptions and an undefined inclination factor. I have also included the theory behind the principle; this is based closely (but not exactly!)on Born & Wolf's treatment.

I have removed the sentence about its elegance, as I don't think that this can be applied to it. Obviously, it was very clever in its time, but I think the accoldate should go to Kirchoff's diffraction formula, which does not appear anywhere in Wikipedia at the moment. I hope to rectify this soon. Epzcaw (talk) 17:27, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Reverted

I reverted a couple of recent edits that were mostly about putting LaTeX math mode into sentences. This is generally frowned on. Use ordinary html, or even better, the Template:Math version, which looks good in sentences but uses the same font as math. Also there were changes to the use of the term "amplitude"; it's used in two ways, but I don't think the fix was great. I'd keep amplitude for the U factor and use something else for the instantaneous wave value. Dicklyon (talk) 23:59, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

......

Sorry - I misundertood instructions about maths - I thought someone (you?) said they should be in LaTex within text.

Re amplitude - Born and Wolf use the term 'disturbance' for the instantaneous wave value. What do you think about following this. Amplitude would then refer solely to the magnitude of the disturbance. Epzcaw (talk) 14:21, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

The second section would then read as follows:

Yes, but amplitude can be complex; it's not just a magnitude. Dicklyon (talk) 16:58, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

I don't want to get into this argument again - what's in a name?. So just refer to the absolute value of the complex amplitude as the 'magnitude'. The disturbance can become 'amplitude' again, or it can stay as 'disturbance' to avoid confusion to those people who consider the amplitude to mean the magnitude as explained in this Wikipedia article. The latter he been implemented below. Epzcaw (talk) 19:01, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

Have put 'magnitude' instead of 'amplitude' where relevant, anc 'complex amplitude' also where relevant. I hope that this is non-controversial. Epzcaw (talk) 15:33, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

Good job. Dicklyon (talk) 15:48, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

Requests

Could the years when Huygens and Fresnel proposed their theories be added to the history section to provide a sense of how long it took for the theory to evolve? Also, it might be necessary to clarify, how Huygens's method of summing spherical waves is different from Fresnel's principle of interference. From the current text it isn't clear what Fresnel's contribution exactly was. I don't know enough about the subject to make the additions myself, but could someone else look at them at their leisure? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.233.155.47 (talk) 10:02, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

I have added dates, as requested above.

I am thinking about how the second point can be addressed - it is a valid question. It may be that a seperate article discussing Huygen's theory of light is required, or it may be possible just to expand on what is in this one. Epzcaw (talk) 13:06, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

Huygens's principle is used to explain what the of phenomena? Tejasvi Vinod Shetter (talk) 01:18, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

Quest II

Can anybody tell if Kirchhoff's diffraction formula implicates that the light or any other wave do travel backwards being π/2 < χ < π ? If that is the case that would be remarkable (not sure if that is the correct word) on the apropiate section (Mathematical expression of the principle). It would be useful if anybody could concretely state it, cause saying that "...however, K is not equal to zero at χ = π/2 " is not enough! . Also it should be stated, if that is the case, that Kirchhoff's diffraction formula is more exact than Huygens–Fresnel principle and dont leave it at reader's assumption. Thanks FranJH — Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.231.51.236 (talk) 22:33, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

Huygens’ principle (geometrical optics)

Does/should it have a wikipage? Or is it the same thing as the H-F principle? The former is mentioned in [1], p. 22 JMP EAX (talk) 14:26, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

I would ask: why is Huygens’ principle now being called "Huygens–Fresnel principle"? Was Huygens' principle not clearly stated by the time of Huygens' death?Wikibearwithme (talk) 08:15, 28 May 2018 (UTC)

Examples

Add some examples of how the average man might see the effects in real life. Jidanni (talk) 03:30, 8 November 2015 (UTC)

Take a laser pointer and shine it on the edge of a razor blade, in a darkened room. Observe interference pattern on wall. Go to a port with a long breakwater, and observe the wave. Spend a half-hour or a few hours looking and thinking. Pick a nice day so that its pleasant. 67.198.37.16 (talk) 19:18, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

Hadamard's conjecture.

In 1900, Jacques Hadamard observed that Huygens principle was broken in even numbers of spatial dimensions. This article should at least mention this. He then developed some conjectures regarding the solution to the wave equation that are still being grappled with today. See:arxiv and google 67.198.37.16 (talk) 19:22, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

I just added a short two sentence remark to that effect. This paper: Huygens principle gives an excellent introduction to Huygens principle and this WP article would be greatly improved by following its general outline and presentation! 67.198.37.16 (talk) 19:47, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

This also has a long long discussion reviewing many relevant references: Huygens principle works only in odd spatial dimensions. 67.198.37.16 (talk) 20:28, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

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Improved section on history

I splitted the section on history in 3 pieces, first part about generic history, second part about classical optics and microscopic models and third part about more quantum physics and microscopic models.

I clarified the limitations of the principle, which were mentioned in an un-complete reference "Which ?".

If the microscopic models part is too large we can eventually push it below in the article. Hope there are enough references. I also tried to split facts from research and opinions in the different relevant places, which were intermixed. Given the major objective of Wikipedia are facts.

Separated out Generalized Huygens principle

Hope this clarify the dilemma in this article between QED centric discussions and classical Optics related ones — Preceding unsigned comment added by Flyredeagle (talk • contribs) 16:23, 3 July 2020 (UTC)