Ето какво съм се напнал да напиша през 2007:

Jan 23, 2007


REFRACTION, DIFFRACTION: NEWTON WAS RIGHT

According to Newton's model of discontinuous (corpuscular) light structure, in the vicinity of water light particles receive more attraction than in air. Therefore, BEFORE the particles reach the surface of the water, their trajectory starts curving; the refraction is due to this curvature. According to the model of continuous light structure (electromagnetic field), AFTER entering the water waves move slower and this delay explains the refraction.

Clearly the curvature predicted by Newton makes the "continuous" explanation at least redundant: since the change in direction starts BEFORE the photons reaching the water surface, at the moment of penetration the refraction is already determined and subsequent events, including the change of the speed of light in water, are not very important.

Paradoxically, it is this change of the speed of light in water that definitively converted 19th century physicists to the "continuous" concept. Leon Foucault, 1850: "Ces resultats accusent une vitesse de la lumiere moindre dans l'eau que dans l'air, et confirment pleinement, selon les vues de M. Arago, les indications de la theorie des ondulations."

Einstein confirmed both the discontinuous nature of light and the curvature in the vicinity of bodies but never abandoned the model of continuous light structure which proved too profitable. Still at the end of his life he said: "I consider it quite possible that physics cannot be based on the field concept,i.e., on continuous structures. In that case, nothing remains of my entire castle in the air, gravitation theory included,[and of] the rest of modern physics."

In explaining diffraction textbooks recognize "a slight bending of the wave front at the edges". However "at the edges" could mean either "near the edges" or "as it grazes the edges". "Near the edges" implies that bodies can attract photons; in fact, that was the essence of Newton's explanation of diffraction. In Opticks he wrote: "Do not bodies act upon light at a distance, and by their action bend its rays; and is not this action strongest at a least distance?".

If said attraction is really the cause of diffraction, as Newton believed, the theory describing light in terms of a continuous field is false. Ironically, compelled by observations, the famous defender of the wave theory of light Fresnel abandoned "as it grazes the edges" and adopted "near the edges", thereby virtually confirming Newton's idea. He wrote: "....quelques reflexions et observations nouvelles m'ont fait douter de l'exactitude d'une hypothese dont j'etais parti pour calculer mes formules: que le centre d'ondulation de la lumiere reflechie etait toujours au bord meme du corps, ou, ce qui revient au meme, que la lumiere inflechie ne pouvait provenir que des rayons qui ont touche sa surface.....la lumiere inflechie ne provient pas seulement de celle qui a rase les biseaux, mais encore des rayons qui en sont passes a des distances sensibles."

Pentcho Valev