Questões de Concurso

Read the excerpt below:

"Both theories, however, were incomplete. Huygens'wave theory struggled to fully explain why light travels ina straight path, and Newton's particle theory couldn'taccount for diffraction, the spreading of light as it passesaround edges or through narrow openings."

Considering the role of this passage in the developmentof the text's argument, it primarily:

(a)

Indicates that the corpuscular and wave theoriesrelied on the same assumptions but differed in theterminology adopted by Huygens and Newton.

(b)

Suggests that diffraction became the central problemof 17th-century optics because neither theory couldaccount for its occurrence.

(c)

Presents the limitations of the competing models asevidence that the scientific debate had reached aconceptual impasse with no subsequent experimentaldevelopments.

(d)

Anticipates the later quantum model by arguing thatHuygens and Newton had already formulatedcomplementary descriptions of wave-particle duality.

(e)

Establishes a contrast between two explanatorymodels by showing that each accounted for certainobservations while leaving relevant phenomenaunresolved.