Fresnel (1788 ~ 1827) is a French civil engineer and physicist. 1788 10 was born in an architect's family in Breu city in May, and was sickly since childhood. When studying, his mathematical intelligence attracted the attention of teachers.
1806 graduated from Paris Institute of Technology, 1809 graduated from Paris Institute of Road and Bridge with a diploma in civil engineering. For a period of time after graduating from college, Fresnel devoted himself to architectural engineering. From 18 14, he obviously turned his attention to the study of light. Fresnel was elected as an academician of French Academy of Sciences on 1823. 1825 was elected as a member of the Royal Society.
His scientific research was carried out in his spare time and under difficult conditions, which consumed his limited income and damaged his health.
18 15, Fresnel submitted the first research report on light diffraction to the Academy of Sciences. At this time, he didn't know Thomas. Yang's paper on diffraction. Fresnel supplemented Huygens' principle with the idea of light wave interference, and thought that on the envelope surface of each wavelet, the synthesized wave has obvious intensity due to the mutual interference of each wavelet, thus giving Huygens' principle a clear physical meaning. But with Thomas. Contrary to Yang's view that diffraction is formed by the interference of direct beam and edge reflected beam, Fresnel believes that the screen edge will not be reflected. Arago enthusiastically reported this paper and was the first person to convert to wave theory.
However, wave theory still has great difficulties in explaining the phenomenon of polarized light interference. Newton once asked in the 26th question of Optics: "Does light have several sides, and each side has some primitive properties?" It is the birefringence that causes this problem. Fresnel and arago summarized the interference law of polarized light, and found that two beams of polarized light can interfere when the reflecting surfaces are parallel to each other. However, when the reflecting surfaces are perpendicular to each other, the interference phenomenon disappears. That is to say, two mutually perpendicular polarized lights do not interfere with each other, while two lights with the same polarization direction can interfere just like ordinary light.
18 17 years, Thomas Young, who has been looking for solutions to the difficulties in wave theory, realized that if the vibration of light does not vibrate longitudinally along the direction of motion like sound waves, it vibrates transversely perpendicular to the direction of motion like water waves or taut strings.