Word.ws English Dictionary

Huygens' principle

Huygens' principle proper noun: the assumption that each point on a wavefront may be regarded as a source of secondary waves and that the position of the wavefront at a later time is determined by the envelope of these secondary waves; proposed in order to explain the fact that light travels in a straight line and casts sharp shadows.

Proper noun

Huygens' principle

  1. The assumption that each point on a wavefront may be regarded as a source of secondary waves and that the position of the wavefront at a later time is determined by the envelope of these secondary waves; proposed in order to explain the fact that light travels in a straight line and casts sharp shadows.

Origin of Huygens' principle

From Christiaan Huygens, Dutch physicist.

Questions about Huygens' principle

What does Huygens' principle mean?
Huygens' principle means the assumption that each point on a wavefront may be regarded as a source of secondary waves and that the position of the wavefront at a later time is determined by the envelope of these secondary waves; proposed in order to explain the fact that light travels in a straight line and casts sharp shadows.
What part of speech is Huygens' principle?
Huygens' principle is a proper noun.

Words near Huygens' principle in the dictionary

  1. Huyen Lalong
  2. Huyen Langlon
  3. Huyen Lanlong
  4. Huygenian
  5. Huygens
  6. Huygens' principle
  7. Huygens-Fresnel principle
  8. Huygenses
  9. Huyghenian
  10. Huyi
  11. Huylebroek

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Huygens' principle (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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