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- The Sun and other stars, fires, torches and lamps all make their own light and so are examples of sources of light. Some animals, such as fireflies and glow-worms, are light sources. They make their own light to attract mates.
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Oct 30, 2024 · Sources of light are things that generate or reflect light such that they illuminate environments. This includes the Sun which is massively responsible for most light on our planet and across our solar system. There are also many natural and human-made sources of light. All (75) Nature (6) Space (17) Bioluminescent Organisms (19) Human-made (33 ...
This lesson talks about sources of light. Learn examples of natural and artificial light sources, examples of reflectors and also about invisible light.
Fireflies, jellyfish, glow-worm, certain deep-sea plants, and microorganisms can be cited as examples. Certain other natural phenomena such as lightning and volcanic eruptions also emit light. Artificial Light Sources: Apart from natural sources, light can be produced artificially too.
- There are countless sources of light, but they can all be categorised under either of the two following categories- Natural sources Artificial sou...
- When certain objects are heated to a high temperature, they begin to emit light. Both infrared and visible light is produced in the process. Examp...
- The change in direction of a wave, while passing from one medium to another is known as refraction.
- Light is a form of energy that enables us to see things. Light starts from a source and bounces off objects which are perceived by our eyes and our...
- Twinkling of stars and formation of rainbow.
- Overview
- Ray theories in the ancient world
Light is electromagnetic radiation that can be detected by the human eye. Electromagnetic radiation occurs over an extremely wide range of wavelengths, from gamma rays with wavelengths less than about 1 × 10−11 metres to radio waves measured in metres.
What is the speed of light?
The speed of light in a vacuum is a fundamental physical constant, and the currently accepted value is 299,792,458 metres per second, or about 186,282 miles per second.
What is a rainbow?
A rainbow is formed when sunlight is refracted by spherical water droplets in the atmosphere; two refractions and one reflection, combined with the chromatic dispersion of water, produce the primary arcs of colour.
Why is light important for life on Earth?
While there is clear evidence that simple optical instruments such as plane and curved mirrors and convex lenses were used by a number of early civilizations, ancient Greek philosophers are generally credited with the first formal speculations about the nature of light. The conceptual hurdle of distinguishing the human perception of visual effects from the physical nature of light hampered the development of theories of light. Contemplation of the mechanism of vision dominated these early studies. Pythagoras (c. 500 bce) proposed that sight is caused by visual rays emanating from the eye and striking objects, whereas Empedocles (c. 450 bce) seems to have developed a model of vision in which light was emitted both by objects and the eye. Epicurus (c. 300 bce) believed that light is emitted by sources other than the eye and that vision is produced when light reflects off objects and enters the eye. Euclid (c. 300 bce), in his Optics, presented a law of reflection and discussed the propagation of light rays in straight lines. Ptolemy (c. 100 ce) undertook one of the first quantitative studies of the refraction of light as it passes from one transparent medium to another, tabulating pairs of angles of incidence and transmission for combinations of several media.
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With the decline of the Greco-Roman realm, scientific progress shifted to the Islamic world. In particular, al-Maʾmūn, the seventh ʿAbbāsid caliph of Baghdad, founded the House of Wisdom (Bayt al-Hikma) in 830 ce to translate, study, and improve upon Hellenistic works of science and philosophy. Among the initial scholars were al-Khwārizmī and al-Kindī. Known as the “philosopher of the Arabs,” al-Kindī extended the concept of rectilinearly propagating light rays and discussed the mechanism of vision. By 1000, the Pythagorean model of light had been abandoned, and a ray model, containing the basic conceptual elements of what is now known as geometrical optics, had emerged. In particular, Ibn al-Haytham (Latinized as Alhazen), in Kitab al-manazir (c. 1038; “Optics”), correctly attributed vision to the passive reception of light rays reflected from objects rather than an active emanation of light rays from the eyes. He also studied the mathematical properties of the reflection of light from spherical and parabolic mirrors and drew detailed pictures of the optical components of the human eye. Ibn al-Haytham’s work was translated into Latin in the 13th century and was a motivating influence on the Franciscan friar and natural philosopher Roger Bacon. Bacon studied the propagation of light through simple lenses and is credited as one of the first to have described the use of lenses to correct vision.
In this article, we learned about what light is. We have also learned how to classify sources of light into natural and artificial sources, and what the properties of light are. In addition, we have learned how we are able to see objects that are not sources of light.
Light sources. A source of light makes light. The Sun and other stars, fires, torches and lamps all make their own light and so are examples of sources of light. Some animals, such as fireflies...
A firefly, the Sun and a candle are all light sources. How do we see light? light reflects off things and enters our eye through the pupil. it passes through the lens which focuses the...
