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Step 3
So here's a theoretical picture of how it should all work.
The laser's ray is split into two paths. One goes north to Mirror 1, one goes east to Mirror 2.
If the path taken by the northbound ray is of a different length to that of the eastbound ray, then when the two rays recombine at the eye / camera / screen, they will have different phases and will display an interference pattern.
No optical rig is perfect, so the rays won't precisely cancel each other out, nor will they exactly boost their amplitude. Instead one should see a fringe pattern of light and dark bands, and the position of those bands will move according to how the 'legs' of the interferometer are changed.
The laser's ray is split into two paths. One goes north to Mirror 1, one goes east to Mirror 2.
If the path taken by the northbound ray is of a different length to that of the eastbound ray, then when the two rays recombine at the eye / camera / screen, they will have different phases and will display an interference pattern.
No optical rig is perfect, so the rays won't precisely cancel each other out, nor will they exactly boost their amplitude. Instead one should see a fringe pattern of light and dark bands, and the position of those bands will move according to how the 'legs' of the interferometer are changed.
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Aug 23, 2010. 6:22 AM
wobbler
says:
wobbler
says:
(removed by author or community request)
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Aug 23, 2010. 9:31 AMjrcgarry (author)
says:
How embarassing - yes, you're quite right. In my haste I'd got the block drawn L-R reversed - thanks for pointing it out.
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