Welcome back, Spherical Cow Moonions! 

This week marks the beginning of our miniseries about the history of light, the birth of quantum mechanics and particle-wave duality! This episode is all about the wave theory of light. We will be discussing some of the key figures involved in the development of this theory, exploring some of the central ideas behind wave theory and looking at the evidence which supports a wave theory of light. 

Please see a slight amendment to our discussion below:

09:30 - Whilst diffraction is one of reasons there are fuzzy edges around shadows, the main reason is because the light source involved in creating the shadow is not a point source. For example, a lamp is not a point source because it has a shape and size. The part of the shadow which is 'fuzzy' therefore is the part which is partially illuminated by the light from one section of the lamp but the rest of the light from the other areas of the lamp are blocked by the object. Hence the 'fuzzy' area isn't as dark as the main shadow because some light from a particular area of the lamp is still able to fall on it.

To view our sources please see our website -https://www.podpage.com/spherical-cow/

N.B. This episode was recorded virtually so the audio quality might be different to normal.