Page:Light waves and their uses.djvu/151

Rh the interference fringes, we should have a means of making an independent measurement of the size of objects which are practically beyond the power of resolution of the most powerful telescope. The principal object of this lecture is to show the feasibility of such methods of measurement. For this purpose, however, the circular fringes that we have been investigating are not very well adapted; they are not very sharply defined; there is not enough contrast between them. However, there is a relation which can be traced out between the clearness of the diffraction fringes and the size and shape of the object viewed. This relation is very complex.

The result of such calculation is that the intensity is greatest at the center, whence it rapidly falls off to zero at the first dark band. It then increases to a second maximum, where it is not more than one-ninth as great as in the center. What we should have to observe, then, is the contrast between these two parts—one but one-ninth as marked as the other and confused more or less by atmospheric disturbances. In case of a rectangular aperture the intensity curve is somewhat different, in that the maxima on either side of the central band are considerably greater, so that it is somewhat easier to see the fringes. In case of the rectangular aperture the fringes are parallel to the long sides of the rectangle. The appearance of the diffraction phenomenon in this case is illustrated in Fig. 95. The pattern consists of a broad central space, whose sides are parallel to the sides of the rectangular slit, and of a succession of fringes diminishing in intensity on