Testing a Mechanical Behavior of Light
Luiz Eduardo Azambuja Sauerbronn
Keywords: Rigid Bodies, Collisions, Diffraction, Fresnel, Light, Laser
We model photons as being rigid bodies. Based only on Newtonian mechanics, we
reproduce numerically the Fresnel Diffraction Experiment. In this way, a large number of rigid bodies
are thrown against a single slit. The rigid bodies used are spherical and their center of mass and
centroid are not coincident. Thus, each rigid body describes a cycloid (presenting amplitude,
frequency and phase - as well as the DeBroglie wave). The numerical results indicate a wave pattern
relatively similar to those achieved by experimental results. Different apertures and depths of the slit
were tested.
