Newton Corpuscular Theory of Light and Huygen's Wave Theory

Question 1

What did Newton suggest?

Answer 1

Light was made up of corpuscles.
His theory was based on the laws of motion of particles (travel in a straight line unless acted upon by a force).

Question 2

What did Newton say about reflection?

Answer 2

Reflection was due to a force on the corpuscles, which changed their direction of travel.

Question 3

What did he say about refraction?

Answer 3

It was due to particles travelling faster in optically denser mediums with higher refractive index.

Question 4

Huygen’s Principle

Answer 4

Every point on a wave front may be considered to be a point of secondary wavelets that spread out at the speed of the wave. The new wavefront is the surface that is tangential to all secondary waves.

Question 5

What did Huygen Show?

Answer 5

Showed that edges of the shadows of interference patterns were not perfectly sharp, therefore light must be a wave and diffract when going through an opening.

Question 6

What could Huygen’s Theory Explain?

Answer 6

Reflection and Refraction

Question 7

Why was Newton Preferred?

Answer 7

Explained reflection and refraction in a more intuitive way that fitted with the laws of physics more at that time. Newton also had a more respectable and reputable status than Huygen.

Newtons theory could not explain diffraction.