The origins of the concept of interference

The concept of interference is implicit in Newton’s explanation of the anomaly of the tides in the Gulf of Tongkin, but Thomas Young was the rst to generalize the prin-ciple and to apply it to compound tides, to auditory beats, and to the colours of thin lms. In his Bakerian Lecture, delivered on 12 and 19 November 1801, he was able to accurately derive the wavelengths of particular hues from Newton’s measurements of the colours of thin plates. The rst printed statement of the generalized principle of interference appears in the Syllabus for his Royal Institution lectures, which was published early in 1802. His celebrated two-slit experiment is rst described in hi