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Apr 24, 2017 · When an electromagnetic source generates light, the light travels outward as a series of concentric spheres spaced in accordance with the vibration of the source. Light always takes the shortest path between a source and destination.
- Theory of Light to 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...
Mar 15, 2024 · Light travels through the vacuum of space at 186,828 miles per second as transverse waves, outside of any material or medium, because photons—the particles that make up light—also behave as waves. This is referred to as the wave-particle duality of light.
Here's an example: We've always taken for granted that light travels faster than anything else in the universe. Then, in 1999, researchers at Harvard University were able to slow a beam of light down to 38 miles an hour (61 kilometers per hour) by passing it through a state of matter known as a Bose-Einstein condensate.
(a) Light reaches the upper atmosphere of Earth, traveling through empty space directly from the source. (b) Light can reach a person by traveling through media like air and glass. (c) Light can also reflect from an object like a mirror.
Light always moves through space in a straight line. This is easiest to see with a ray box or a laser. Light is the fastest thing in the universe when moving through empty space (aka. a vacuum).
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How does light travel through space?
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Is light the fastest thing in the universe?
As the light from the universe’s most distant galaxies travels through space, it’s stretched by the expansion of space. By the time the light reaches Earth, that stretching process has transformed short wavelengths of visible and ultraviolet light into the longer wavelengths of infrared light.
