DIFFRACTION • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Diffraction

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/dɪfrˈækʃən/ Listen $Listen 'Diffraction'$

noun

Diffraction n. (Opt.) The deflection and decomposition of light in passing by the edges of opaque bodies or through narrow slits, causing the appearance of parallel bands or fringes of prismatic colors, as by the action of a grating of fine lines or bars. "Remarked by Grimaldi (1665), and referred by him to a property of light which he called diffraction."

Diffraction grating. (Optics) See under Grating.

Diffraction spectrum. (Optics) See under Spectrum.

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$Etymology of 'Diffraction'$ Etymology of 'Diffraction'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Diffraction" Quotes from Famous Books

... "Spectric" will indicate something of the nature of the technique which it describes. "Spectric" has, in this connection, three separate but closely related meanings. In the first place, it speaks, to the mind, of that process of diffraction by which are disarticulated the several colored and other rays of which light is composed. It indicates our feeling that the theme of a poem is to be regarded as a prism, upon which the colorless ...

— Spectra - A Book of Poetic Experiments • Arthur Ficke