why does the point of a laser look pixelated when spread out?
In: Physics
Going with the wave model of light, compare each bright speck of light the the tip of each wave on a body of water under “choppy” conditions. When the waves are regular and all coming from the same direction the top of each wave would be a line. Once the waves bounce off an irregular shoreline or rocks they start interfering with each other until no perceptible waves just thousands of random peaks.
Regular orderly waves are what is emitted by any laser but the wavelength of light is so short that there is no surface smooth enough to avoid acting like a rocky shoreline to the laser.
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