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I was just wondering, when two different objects have have light coming from them to our eyes, do the intensities of each diffraction interfere? For example, in the picture below:

cnx.org

Do the intensities interfere with each other?

Yulmart
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1 Answers1

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Rayleigh's criterion gives a quantitative measure of the angle ($\theta$), being a function of wavelength ($\lambda$) and diameter of the lens ($d$), necessary to distinguish between two light sources. In particular we have, $$ \theta = 1,220\cdot \frac{\lambda}{d} $$

The two light sources are non coherent which means they can not interfere with each other. If the light bulbs are to be replaced by two coherent laser sources, they would interfere with each other. Note that the light from light bulbs comes from photons emitted by a wire which can be seen as a statistical process.

EpsilonDelta
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  • What exactly do you mean by "coherent"? – Yulmart May 09 '15 at 22:19
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    coherent -- having constant phase difference – aaaaa says reinstate Monica May 09 '15 at 22:53
  • Their light can interfere, if they are sufficiently far away, such that the optical path difference is small compared to the wavelength (though technically one might say, that they are effectively one light source then, for the purposes of interference). This argumentation is essential to the consideration of spatial coherence in the analysis of the double slit experiment with an extended, spatially incoherent light source. – Sebastian Riese May 09 '15 at 23:32