CH-1010 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: William Hyde Wollaston, Electromagnetic Spectrum, Electric Field
Document Summary
Rutherford (gold foil experiment) believed that electrons orbited the nucleus. Classical physics predicts the electrons should lose energy and spiral into the nucleus. Let"s begin by considering how atoms interact with electromagnetic radiation. Visible light is only a small portion of the em spectrum. Moves through space and transparent media as waves. Waves have a magnetic field component and an electric field component. All electromagnetic waves move through space at the same, constant speed. C = 2. 998 x 108 m/s speed of light. The shorter the waves, the more frequently they pass a fixed point o v x l = c. Recall that c is the speed of light (2. 998 x 108 m/s) o v (s-1 or hz) x l (m) = c (m/s) William hyde wollaston, 1800, observed the spectrum of sunlight using carefully ground glass prisms and found that it was not completely carefully ground glass prisms and found that it was not completely continuous.