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I believe you are referring to diffraction. The general principle - called the Huygens–Fresnel principle - and one that can be used for analysis is that EVERY point reached by a wave (including light) becomes the origin of a new spherical wave. If this is analyzed in detail (combined by the principle of superposition), it turns out that this gives waves the behavior observed, including diffraction, interference, and the fact that in free space, light will just go "straight ahead".

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