Abstract

The phenomenon of fringes visible in scattered light was first observed by Newton. In his experiment, sunlight was passed through a pinhole positioned at the center of curvature of a back-silvered spherical mirror. What he saw centered about the pinhole was a series of colored rings that were greatly enhanced when the front surface of the mirror was dusted with a fine powder. As described by DeWitte,¹ the principles used to explain the rings are similar to those used to describe the scatterplate interferometer.

© 1980 Optical Society of America