He investigated the phenomenon of refraction, deducing the wave theory of light, and was the first to suggest that matter expands when heated and that air is made of small particles separated by relatively large distances.
32.
If the wave theory of light had been correct, the threshold energy could be overcome either by increasing amplitude or frequency since the power of a ( mechanical ) wave is dictated by both its amplitude and frequency.
33.
By 1804, Thomas Young's double-slit experiment revealed an interference pattern as though light were a wave, and thus Huygens's wave theory of light, as well as Huygens's inference that light waves were vibrations of the luminiferous aether was accepted.
34.
In about 1639, soon after returning from England, He painted a portrait of the Dutch scientist Christiaan Huygens ( 1629 1695 ), a contemporary of Isaac Newton, who discovered the wave theory of light, Saturn's rings and the pendulum clock.
35.
Arago expanded upon Wheatstone's concept in an 1838 publication, emphasizing the possibility that a test of the relative speed of light in air " versus " water could be used to distinguish between the particle and wave theories of light.
36.
:In other words the coverage of B, classical wave theory of light, would be represented in a much larger way in the article than the proportion of experts saying it was the complete, correct theory would suggest at that date.
37.
Augustin-Jean Fresnel did more definitive studies and calculations of diffraction, published in 1815 and 1818, and thereby gave great support to the wave theory of light that had been advanced by Christiaan Huygens and reinvigorated by Young, against Newton's particle theory.
38.
To the ultimate explanation of the phenomena with which he dealt he contributed nothing, and it is noteworthy although he did not maintain to the end of his life the corpuscular theory he never explicitly adopted the wave theory of light.
39.
Soldner's work on the effect of gravity on light came to be considered less relevant during the nineteenth century, as " corpuscular " theories and calculations based on them were increasingly considered to have been discredited in favour of wave theories of light.
40.
The detail of a physical object that an optical instrument can reproduce in an image has limits that are mandated by laws of physics, whether formulated by the diffraction equations in the wave theory of light or the Uncertainty Principle for photons in quantum mechanics.
