HUYGENS' PRINCIPLE

in optics, a statement that all points of a wave front of light in a vacuum or transparent medium may be regarded as new sources of wavelets that expand in every direction at a rate depending on their velocities. Proposed by the Dutch mathematician, physicist, and astronomer, Christiaan Huygens, in 1690, it is a powerful method for studying various optical phenomena. A surface tangent to the wavelets constitutes the new wave front and is called the envelope of the wavelets. If a medium is homogeneous and has the same properties throughout (i.e., is isotropic), permitting light to travel with the same speed regardless of its direction of propagation, the three-dimensional envelope of a point source will be spherical; otherwise, as is the case with many crystals, the envelope will be ellipsoidal in shape (see double refraction). An extended light source will consist of an infinite number of point sources and may be thought of as generating a plane wave front.