Theory
There is light incident on the flat plane of the convex lens that is situated on the optically flat glass surface below, the light passes through the glass lens until it comes to the glass-air boundary, and here the light goes from a higher refractive index (n) value to a lower n value. The light passes through this boundary and suffers no phase change. Also at this boundary, some light is transmitted into the air, and some light is reflected. The light that is transmitted to the air travels a distance, t, before it is reflected at the flat surface below; the air-glass boundary causes a half-cycle phase shift because the air has a lower refractive index than the glass. The two reflected rays now travel in the same direction to be detected. The convex lens touches the flat surface below, and from this point, as one gets farther away, the distance t increases, because the lens is curving away from the surface:
- so therefore:
- and finally, we have:
Read more about this topic: Newton's Rings
Famous quotes containing the word theory:
“The theory seems to be that so long as a man is a failure he is one of God’s chillun, but that as soon as he has any luck he owes it to the Devil.”
—H.L. (Henry Lewis)
“... the first reason for psychology’s failure to understand what people are and how they act, is that clinicians and psychiatrists, who are generally the theoreticians on these matters, have essentially made up myths without any evidence to support them; the second reason for psychology’s failure is that personality theory has looked for inner traits when it should have been looking for social context.”
—Naomi Weisstein (b. 1939)
“It is not enough for theory to describe and analyse, it must itself be an event in the universe it describes. In order to do this theory must partake of and become the acceleration of this logic. It must tear itself from all referents and take pride only in the future. Theory must operate on time at the cost of a deliberate distortion of present reality.”
—Jean Baudrillard (b. 1929)