Phys335 - Optics

Task #6

This task has you work through a review of Physical Optics. This should all
be a review of things that you learned in your General Physics course. Feel free to go
back and use that book or your Hecht text if you need to review. Please work
together with your group as you tackle the following problems. You will be
submitting hard copies as well as including this topic on your webpage. Answer the
questions thoroughly and be sure to always explain your reasoning.

Concepts
1. Describe the first experiment that showed that light was a wave and how it
was determined to be so.
2. What does it mean for two waves to be out of phase? Draw a picture of what
this looks like. Do the same for waves that are in phase.
3. What do you see when light shines on a screen after passing through two
closely spaced slits? Describe this phenomenon.
4. What do you see when light shines on a screen after passing through one
narrow slit (or around one narrow barrier)? Describe this phenomenon.

Problems
5. Two loudspeakers are apart. They play tones of equal frequency. If you
stand in front of the speakers, exactly between them, you hear a
maximum intensity. If you stay the same distance way but instead are
directly in front of one of them, you hear no sound at all.
a. What is the frequency of the sound being played?
b. Sketch the diagram that shows the maximum and the minimum.

6. The figure shows light passing through two narrow closely spaced slits. The
graph shows the intensity of the pattern on a screen behind the slits. Use the
blank axes as a guide to draw the intensity pattern if the right slit is covered
(so light only goes through the left slit) and explain your reasoning.
7. A screen is placed behind two narrow slits that are separated by
The figure below shoes the light intensity on the screen. What is
the wavelength of the light used to form this pattern?

8. A diffraction grating is placed from a viewing screen. Light from a

hydrogen lamp shines through the grating and a spectral line is seen
to one side of center. If instead a mercury lamp is used, where will
its classic spectral line appear?