AS101 Lecture 7: Nature of Light
Document Summary
Light is a form of electromagnetic radiation that is visible to the human eye. If someone was looking at earth from 200 million light years away, they would see the dinosaurs. Theres a whole range of emr, light is one type of it. All types of emr have a constant speed. Electromagnetic radiation (emr) includes radio waves, microwaves, infrared radiation, visible light, ultraviolet radiation, x-rays and gamma rays. The speed of light is constant (c = 3x10 to the 8 m/s) Can be either a transverse wave motion or discrete packets of energy called photons. Light comes at us from many different angles. Sunglasses have slits that only allow one ray of light in. We can use filters to eliminate certain angles. Properties like refraction, diffraction, polarization and interference effects are best explained using a wave description. Properties like photoelectric effect, atomic spectra and thermal radiation are better explained using a particle model.
