ASTR 101 Lecture 16: Astronomy Chapter 5: Light and Matter: Reading Messages from the Cosmos

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Light and matter: reading messages from the cosmos. Light behaves more like a wave than a particle. White light is made up of many different colours. Interactions between light and matter determine the appearance of everything around us. A wave is a pattern of motion that can carry energy without carrying matter along with it. Wavelength= the distance between 2 wave peaks. Frequency= the number of times per second that a wave vibrates up and down. Can act either like a wave of like a particle. Electrons move when light passes by, showing that light carries a vibrating electrical eld. A light wave is a vibration of electrical and magnetic elds. Light interacts with charged particles through these electric and magnetic elds. Each photon has a wavelength and a frequency. The energy of a photons depends on its frequency wavelength x frequency = speed of light = constant. Polarization describes the direction in which a light wave is vibrating.

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