Abstract
THE diffraction of light on a circular aperture in a thin opaque screen has been studied by G. B. Airy1, E. Lommel2 and many others after them. The experiment is of fundamental importance for the theory of the image formation in optical instruments. The formula given by Airy has been but little modified, and in its present form (Preston3) is: where X is the minimum separable distance between two neighbouring disks, representing points of the object, the wave-length of the light, F the focal length and d the diameter of the lens.
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References
Airy, G. B., Trans. Camb. Phil., 5, 238 (1834).
Lommnel, E., Beugungserscheinungen an einer Kalisronschen Öffnung, München, 1884.
Preston, T., ” The Theory of Light”, 327 (London, Macmillan & Co., Ltd., 5th Edition, 1928).
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MERLING-EISENBERG, K. Diffraction Experiments on the Resolving Power of Telescopes and Microscopes. Nature 139, 416–417 (1937). https://doi.org/10.1038/139416a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/139416a0
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