Mainz 1997 – scientific programme

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PV: Plenarvorträge

PV V

PV V: Plenary Talk

Wednesday, March 5, 1997, 09:00–09:45, RW 1

The colours of caustics — •Michael Berry — Department of Physics, Bristol University

Brilliant colours accompany the diffraction of white light near caustics where rays are focused. Supernumerary rainbows are the most familiar example. Catastrophe theory, employed in the 1970s for monochromatic light, can be extended to enable the colours, as seen by human eyes, to be rendered on a computer screen. The finest details of the fringes appear oxymoronically black-and-white, because we are colour-blind on the smallest scales. Decoherence introduces unexpected fringes into the coloured patterns.