Richard Clark wrote:

It is quite evident that through the actions of the first interface,
that there is less energy incident upon the second interface.
Further, given that both interfaces operate with identical reflective
and transmissive properties, it follows the second interface could not
reflect enough to totally negate the reflections of the first.

True for any one reflection. But as an optical engineer I'm sure you're
aware that, even in a lossy medium, a given wave reflects back and forth
multiple times before it's amplitude is reduced to insignificance. As
you know, the measured amplitude at a surface would then be the
superposition of multiple successively reflected waves.

So says JM Vaughn in his book "The Fabry-Perot Interfermeter". He cites
Born and Wolf a lot. Also Kuhn, Steel, Liddell, Mcleod, Meissner,
Tolansky, Jacquinot, and of course, Fabry and Perot. Strangely, no
mention of Hecht.

For those who are interested, a Fabry-Perot interferometer is an optical
instrument comprising two partially reflective parallel mirror surfaces
separated by some fixed or variable distance. It's basically a
narrow-bandpass filter at light wavelengths.

73, ac6xg