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I have recently started learning about physical or wave optics and one of the initial topics is Huygens' Principle.

One part of Huygens' Principle states that every point on the wavefront acts as a source of secondary spherical wavefronts

Now I have two questions:

  1. Why is that? Why is every particle producing its own wavefronts? Can someone explain what exactly happens at the particle level to beget this phenomenon?

  2. What about the points on the secondary wavefronts? Are they producing their own wavefronts too? If yes then the cycle would never stop and this seems so unfathomable to me.

I would appreciate as an answer that doesn't revolve around pure math but is rather more intuitive.

Qmechanic
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Spluesh
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1 Answers1

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A round object that is pushed into the water causes a uniform displacement of the homogeneous medium around it and a ring-shaped wave is created.

If I replace this one object with a sequence of objects - a ruler for example - the homogeneity of the medium along the ruler is disturbed. The medium can only move in front of and behind it, forming a plane wave - except at the ends of the ruler. There, the ends cause ring-shaped waves again.

HolgerFiedler
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