The wave theory of light includes the understanding that light diffracts as it moves through space, bending around obstacles and interfering with itself constructively and destructively. Diffraction grating disperses light according to wavelength. The intensity pattern of monochromatic light going through a small, circular aperture will produce a pattern of a central maximum and other local minima and maxima.

The wave nature of light and the diffraction pattern of light plays an interesting role in another subject: resolution. The light which comes through the hole, as demonstrated by the concept of diffraction, will not appear as a small circle with sharply defined edges. There will appear some amount of fuzziness to the perimeter of the light circle.

Consider if there are two sources of light that are near to each other. In this case, the light circles will overlap each other. Move them even closer together and they may appear as one light source. This means that they cannot be resolved, that the resolution is not high enough for the two to be distinguished from another.

Considering diffraction through a circular aperture the angular resolution is as follows:

Angular resolution: θ = 1.22 * λ/D,

where λ is the wavelength of light, D is the diameter of the lens aperture and the factor 1.22 corresponds to the resolution limit formulated and empirically tested using experiments performed using telescopes and astronomical measurements by John William Strutt, a.k.a. Rayleigh for the “Rayleigh Criterion.” This factor describes what would be the minimum angle for two objects to be distinguishable.