Bill and David,
I think you both need to give a short glossary of your terms. I
hear what you both are saying and I partially agree with both of you, but
I am still confused. I hope I'm not jumping out of my league here and
these may sound stupid but...
A couple questions:
1) Isn't the "speckle" we see when a laser strikes a surface, just say an
index card, caused by the interference of the "in step", same phase,
photons as they reflect off the surface?
2) If the photons aren't in phase, then why does a 1/4 wave plate do what
it does to a laser beam?
3) Bill, are you saying that all the photons have the same frequency, but
are not necessarily in phase with each other?
4) What is the purpose of the brewster window and why don't small HeNe
lasers have them?
I know the answer to some of these but hearing your explanations will help
me figure out what you guys are trying to say. Just playing Devil's
advocate in a way.
--
James Bradford Shue jshue@comp.uark.edu
University of Arkansas Voice phone:(501) 575-6059
Physics Lab/Demo Curator FAX Number: (501) 575-4580
WWW Page http://comp.uark.edu/~jshue