Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- intransitive & transitive verb To undergo or cause to undergo diffraction.
from The Century Dictionary.
- To break into parts; specifically, in optics, to break up, as a beam of light, by deflecting it from a right line; deflect.
- In lichenology, broken into distinct areoles separated by chinks.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- transitive verb To break or separate into parts; to deflect, or decompose by deflection, a� rays of light.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- verb transitive To cause
diffraction - verb intransitive To undergo diffraction
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- verb undergo diffraction
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
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Examples
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These air bubbles diffract light into colors that reflect back in a flash of iridescence.
Birdology Sy Montgomery 2010
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Following the experiments of Davisson and Germer and Thomson, scientists showed that all subatomic particles behave like waves: beams of protons and neutrons will diffract off samples of atoms in exactly the same way that electrons do.
How to Teach Physics to Your Dog CHAD ORZEL 2009
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A dog can hear a potato chip hitting the kitchen floor from the living room because sound waves diffract through the kitchen door and around corners.
How to Teach Physics to Your Dog CHAD ORZEL 2009
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For example if two people stand back-to-back in an open field with no large objects to reflect or diffract the sound waves, they can still hold a conversation.
Optics basics: What is a wave? Part III: Diffraction « Skulls in the Stars 2007
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This is why nobody has ever seen a dog diffract around a tree; nor are we likely to see it any time soon.
How to Teach Physics to Your Dog CHAD ORZEL 2009
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On the right, a wave with a long wavelength encounters an opening comparable to the wavelength, and the waves diffract through a large range of directions.
How to Teach Physics to Your Dog CHAD ORZEL 2009
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We also saw that quantum particles behave like waves—electrons, atoms, and molecules diffract around obstacles and form interference patterns.
How to Teach Physics to Your Dog CHAD ORZEL 2009
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Similarly, if sound waves encounter an obstacle like a chair or a tree, they will diffract around it, provided the object is not too much larger than the wavelength.
How to Teach Physics to Your Dog CHAD ORZEL 2009
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Material particles have wave nature and can diffract around objects.
How to Teach Physics to Your Dog CHAD ORZEL 2009
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As a result, the waves diffract by a large amount, which is why we can hear sounds even around tight corners.
How to Teach Physics to Your Dog CHAD ORZEL 2009
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