Huygens' Principle

What is Huygens' principle:


  • Every point on a wavefront acts as a secondary source of light and sends out secondary wavelets in all directions. 
  • The secondary wavelets travel with the speed of light in the medium and are effective only in the forward direction. 
  • At any instant, the forward going envelope or the surface of tangency to these wavelets gives the position of the new wavefront at that instant.