Properties of Light

Key Questions

  • Answer:

    Here are some everyday examples.

    Explanation:

    A mirror, shiny metals and essentially everything you see that has color. Light is made up of many colors, the color we see and object as is simply the color that is being reflected back.
    EX: Leaves are perceived as green because it is absorbing every color except for green. Green is being reflected back into our eyes so that is the color we see.

  • Light has properties of both waves and particles; it can be described as both an electromagnetic wave and as a photon, the carrier particle of the electromagnetic force.


    Light is electromagnetic so it consists of oscillating electric and magnetic fields.

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    The visible part of the spectrum has a wavelength range of #3.7 × 10^-7 — 7.4 × 10^-7 m#.

    All electromagnetic waves have a speed of #3.0 × 10^8 \ m\ s^-1# in a vacuum.

    Light can be reflected, refracted, diffracted, polarised ( polarized in US English), and superposed.

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