what are the draw backs of hugyen's wave theory of light?
an advantage - simple demonstration of wave interference effects such as two slip interference pattern
a drawback - harder to explain discrete events such as Einstein photoelectric effect.
an advantage - simple demonstration of wave interference effects such as two slit interference pattern
a drawback - harder to explain discrete events such as Einstein photoelectric effect.
The wave theory also does not sccount for spontaneous emission and induced emission (which are needed to explain gaseous emission and laser amplification). The wave theory also cannot explain "shot noise" in light measurements, which is caused by statistcal fluctuations in photon counting.
Huygens' wave theory of light, developed by Dutch physicist Christiaan Huygens in the 17th century, was a significant step towards understanding the nature of light. However, it also had a few drawbacks.
One of the main drawbacks of Huygens' wave theory is the inability to explain certain phenomena, such as the photoelectric effect and the atomic structure of matter. The theory suggested that light was a wave phenomenon, which posed difficulties in explaining phenomena that could only be explained by assuming light to be a particle.
Another drawback of Huygens' theory was its inability to account for the phenomenon of interference, where two waves meet and either reinforce or cancel each other out. Huygens' wave theory treated light as a series of independent wavelets, which made it difficult to explain interference patterns observed in experiments.
Additionally, Huygens' theory failed to explain the polarization of light. The polarization of light refers to the orientation of the oscillations of light waves in a particular direction. Huygens' theory did not provide any explanation for why light waves could be selectively polarized.
Moreover, Huygens' wave theory was not able to explain the Doppler effect, which describes the change in frequency of a wave due to relative motion between the source and the observer. It was only later that the wave-particle duality concept helped to bridge some of these gaps in understanding.
To address these drawbacks, further advancements in the study of light were required, leading to the development of electromagnetic theory by James Clerk Maxwell in the 19th century and later quantum mechanics in the 20th century. These theories provided a more comprehensive understanding of light and resolved many of the limitations of Huygens' wave theory.