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When light propagates in a transparent material medium, its speed is in general less than the speed in vacuum c. An interesting consequence of this is that a light ray will change direction when passing from one medium to another. Since the light ray appears to be “broken”, the phenomenon is known as refraction.
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In this module you will learn about the nature and properties of light in the following lessons: Lesson 1 – The Nature of Light Lesson 2 – Reflection and Mirrors Lesson 3 – Refraction and Lenses Lesson 4 – Colors, Interference and Polarization. What you are expected to learn.
Today: operties of Light)Light: preliminariesLight is. the only thing we actually see – e.g. When I “see” you, I am. Light is a transverse wave (recall earlier), whose origin is. accelerating electrons, e.g. in the sunAccelerating electrons not only can produce light, but. lso radio waves, mi. rowaves, x-rays.... Gr. electromagnetic waves.
Light is absorbed (propagation is stopped) Medium is opaque. If light wave frequency ≠ molecules resonant frequency. Light is reradiated and propagated forward through medium. Medium is transparent. In a solid or liquid, propagation is in straight line. In a gas, propagation is less organized and scatter increases.
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Characteristics of light. • Light is an electromagnetic wave. As shown below, an electromagnetic wave is a transverse wave consisting of mutually perpendicular oscillating electric and magnetic fields. Electromagnetic waves are ultimately produced by an accelerating charge. A changing electric field produces a changing magnetic field which in ...
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ight and Optics:We just learned that light is a wave (an "electromagnetic wave", with very s. all wavelength).But in many cases, you can safely ignore the wave. nature of light!Light was studied for a long time (obviously), long before Maxwell, and very. well understood. People thought about light as sort of like a stream of "particles" that ...
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This fact simply proves that the speed of light is greater than that of sound. If one knows the distance to the location of the lightning and the speed of sound, one could, in principle, determine the speed of light from the data. In practice, because the speed of light is so great, the data would have to be known to impractically high ...
