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- Light is a type of electromagnetic radiation that can be detected by the eye. It travels as a transverse wave. Unlike a sound waves, light waves do not need a medium to pass through, they can travel through a vacuum. Light from the Sun reaches Earth through the vacuum of space.
www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/articles/ztmsp4j
How can light (or electromagnetic radiation) travel through a vacuum when there is nothing there to act as a medium, and do so forever in all directions? For example the light coming from a star millions of light years away.
- Theory of Light in The 19th Century
- Double-Slit Experiment
- Electromagnetism and Special Relativity
- Einstein and The Photon
- Wave-Particle Duality
During the Scientific Revolution, scientists began moving away from Aristotelian scientific theories that had been seen as accepted canon for centuries. This included rejecting Aristotle's theory of light, which viewed it as being a disturbance in the air (one of his four "elements" that composed matter), and embracing the more mechanistic view tha...
By the early 19th century, scientists began to break with corpuscular theory. This was due in part to the fact that corpuscular theory failed to adequately explain the diffraction, interference and polarization of light, but was also because of various experiments that seemed to confirm the still-competing view that light behaved as a wave. The mos...
Prior to the 19th and 20th centuries, the speed of light had already been determined. The first recorded measurements were performed by Danish astronomer Ole Rømer, who demonstrated in 1676 using light measurements from Jupiter's moon Io to show that light travels at a finite speed (rather than instantaneously). By the late 19th century, James Cler...
In 1905, Einstein also helped to resolve a great deal of confusion surrounding the behavior of electromagnetic radiation when he proposed that electrons are emitted from atoms when they absorb energy from light. Known as the photoelectric effect, Einstein based his idea on Planck's earlier work with "black bodies" – materials that absorb electromag...
Subsequent theories on the behavior of light would further refine this idea, which included French physicist Louis-Victor de Broglie calculating the wavelength at which light functioned. This was followed by Heisenberg's "uncertainty principle" (which stated that measuring the position of a photon accurately would disturb measurements of it momentu...
Light can travel in three ways from a source to another location: (1) directly from the source through empty space; (2) through various media; and (3) after being reflected from a mirror. Conceptual Questions
Apr 24, 2017 · Light travels slower in a medium than it does in a vacuum, and the speed is proportional to the density of the medium. This speed variation causes light to bend at the interface of two media — a phenomenon called refraction.
May 19, 2016 · Light speed is not constant when traveling through any medium except pure vacuum. In fact that is why your pencil looks bent when you drop it in a glass of water.
May 13, 2003 · Yes, light can travel through a vacuum. A vacuum is an area devoid of matter, including air molecules, which are usually responsible for scattering and absorbing light. Therefore, in a vacuum, light can travel unobstructed in a straight line.
Feb 18, 2024 · The speed of light in a vacuum is approximately 299,792 kilometers per second or about 186,282 miles per second. This incredible velocity makes light one of the fastest phenomena in the universe. It allows light to traverse immense cosmic distances and reach us from distant stars and galaxies.
