Conclusions

This was fun. xdesktopwaves is producing a good physical model, which is probably why it is so cool looking. It would be mildly interesting to quantify this further, but probably I should wait until my accelerator is off. Someone with some time on their hands could use this tool to make an interesting series of virtual optics labs, looking at dispersion, propagation in waveguides, etc. Someone without time on their hands could still whip together a neat lecture demonstration. Of course that's no substitute for doing these experiments with physical waves; this experiment you can do with a laser pointer and an index card.