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- Light is a transverse, electromagnetic wave that can be seen by the typical human.
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Light is called an 'electromagnetic wave' for historical reasons* in the following sense: It turned out that the effects of visible light and other radiation can be calculated using Maxwell's equations, which are also used to model the behaviour of electrically charged particles. This was an instant of a successful unification and it hasn't ...
Currently light is thought of both as a wave and being made up of particles (photons), because as Robert mentioned in his answer, certain phenomena require modelling light as a wave to explain (interference, diffraction etc.), and others require photons (such as the photo-electric effect).
Apr 24, 2017 · Light always takes the shortest path between a source and destination. A line drawn from the source to the destination, perpendicular to the wave-fronts, is called a ray. Far from the source, spherical wave fronts degenerate into a series of parallel lines moving in the direction of the ray.
May 24, 2024 · We know that light is a wave based on how it behaves – it exhibits the same properties of other waves we have examined – it interferes with itself, it follows an inverse-square law for intensity (brightness), and so on.
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...
If light is a particle, then why does it refract when travelling from one medium to another? And if light is a wave, then why does it dislodge electrons ? But all behavior of light can be explained by combining the two models: light behaves like particles and light behaves like waves.
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Why does light behave like a wave?
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Light behaves as a wave - it undergoes reflection, refraction, and diffraction just like any wave would. Yet there is still more reason to believe in the wavelike nature of light. Continue with Lesson 1 to learn about more behaviors that could never be explained by a strictly particle-view of light.
