CDs and the Wave Character of Light

Examine a compact disc under white light, noting the colors observed and their locations on the disc. Using the CD, explore the spectra of a few light sources, such as a candle flame, an incandescent bulb, and fluorescent light. If you have ever looked at the reds, blues, and greens in a sunlit soap bubble and wondered how straw-colored soapy water could produce them, you have hit upon one of the many phenomena that can only be explained by the wave character of light. That and other interesting phenomena, such as the dispersion of white light into a rainbow of colors when passed through a narrow slit, cannot be explained fully by geometric optics. In such cases, light interacts with small objects and exhibits its wave characteristics. The topic of this chapter is the branch of optics that considers the behavior of light when it exhibits wave characteristics.