What is it about?
We present a modular, highly versatile set-up that allows for the public demonstration of wave-optics phenomena that are normally hard to observe even for individual observers. Best of all, it is quite easy to assemble and equivalent set-up with easily and readily available equipment, making it very usable, even in "regular" schools.
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Why is it important?
Wave optics phenomena are usually very hard to demonstrate to large groups of people. The pictures are often very dim and hard to see even for a single person. We propose a way to make some of the fundamental wave-optics phenomena relatively easy to show to large groups of people. This is really important in education - most teachers are hard pressed for time and cannot afford the time to do demonstrations to individual students.
Perspectives
This is arguably the crown jewel in my career as a demonstrator so far. We have done these experiments on several occasions to large groups of teachers and get literal ovations every time. We've had teachers with decades of experience come up to us to say "This is the very first time EVER I've seen some of those live". Those phenomena are not just fundamental to the teaching of wave optics, they are outright beautiful. Making that accessible to large groups is so incredibly gratifying.
Mr Stefan Nikolaev Nikolov
Plovdivski universitet Paisij Hilendarski
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Demonstrations of wave optics (interference and diffraction of light) for large audiences using a laser and a multimedia projector, Physics Education, October 2011, Institute of Physics Publishing,
DOI: 10.1088/0031-9120/46/6/008.
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