Re: Thomas Young's experiment

[Hugh Haskell <hhaskell@MINDSPRING.COM>]

At 20:56 -0800 10/30/03, Ludwik Kowalski wrote:
> The well known Young's experiment demonstrating
> the wave nature of light was performed in ~1601. I
> suppose that light from a large candle was focused
> on the first single pinhole.

Actually, it was done in 1803, by which time I suspect that stronger
light sources than just a candle were available, but even if not, I
can think of at least two alternatives. One would be to focus the
light of the candle on the spot that formed the source for the double
slits (which wouldn't have to be too far from the source), using a
concave mirror. Another would be to use sunlight. Granted sunlight
would be a bit more difficult to use because the source is moving,
but even if only momentary, it would be pretty bright, and thus the
effect would be relatively easy to see.

Hugh
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Hugh Haskell
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