Abstract
The simplest problem in diffraction — light passing a straight edge — did not receive a rigorous solution till Sommerfeld’s work of 1896. The earlier theories, their successes and their limitations are recounted. They led upto Sommerfeld’s final solution which had eluded many great contemporaries. This solution was a landmark of rigorous diffraction theory.
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Arnold Sommerfeld, Lectures on Theoretical Physics: Optics, Levant Books, Kolkata, 2006.
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Rajaram Nityananda works at the School of Liberal Studies, Azim Premji University, Bengaluru. arlier, he spent a decade at the National Centre for Radio Astrophysics in Pune, and more than two decades at the Raman Research Institute in Bengaluru. He has taught physics and astronomy at the Indian Institute of Science in Bengaluru and the IISERs in Pune and Mohali. He is keenly interested in optics in a broad sense, and more generally, problems, puzzles, paradoxes, analogies, and their role in teaching and understanding physics.
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Nityananda, R. Diffraction at a straight edge. Reson 20, 389–400 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12045-015-0197-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12045-015-0197-0