6 Amazing Facts About Light
Light is the biggest source of energy. One cannot imagine life without it. Light is the only thing that has sustained life on the earth. The sun is the biggest source of light that is powering the earth. And this power is being utilized, reusing to maintain life on the planet. Light fulfills every need of human beings. If there won’t be any light, life can never be possible.
Here are some amazing facts about light
- Light is a wave as well as particle:
We all know light follows laws of reflection and refraction. They all can help us to understand all the physical significance of light in our lives. But Light carries dual nature. It is particles as well as wave nature. To understand the wave nature, you can imagine the disturbance or ripple formed by a rock in still water. This disturbance moves radially outward from the point where the rock hit the water. Young’s Double-slit experiment has proved that the same sort of vibrations can be generated in light when light is allowed to pass through a narrow hole. Thus light can carry all properties of a wave that includes amplitude, wavelength, frequency, and wave speed. The photoelectric effect is explained by Einstein based on the particle-wave nature of the light and it is widely used in Solar Systems and fiber optics telecommunication.
2. Light is an Electromagnetic Wave
We know waves require a medium to travel. As light is also a wave then how can it travel from the sun to earth through space? To know about the medium let’s demonstrate an activity. Place a current-carrying electric wire over a magnetic compass, we observe a deflection in the needle though the current does not pass through the compass. This is called the electromagnetic induction phenomenon. Changing electric fields can produce magnetic fields and vice versa discovered by Micheal Faraday. So by putting both electric and magnetic waves together both are each other’s medium for propagation. So EM waves do not require any medium to travel and are dependent on themselves. Hence light also categorizes as EM Wave.
3. Different wavelengths of light interact differently with matters
Electromagnetic waves have different wavelengths that may vary larger than 1 meter (radio Wave) to less than 10 picometers (gamma rays). So dependent on the wavelength the waves are categorized. These different waves have different properties. Like X-rays can pass through the human body whereas the visible light won’t. All matters is the difference in the wavelength. Here we can conclude that the interaction of light and matter depends on the wavelength cum frequency of the light. As wavelength and frequency are somehow related to each other.
4. We see things because of light
There are two ways light can enter your eyes. First is the light source you are pointing at and the second is the reflected rays. When we look at some passive elements, the reflected light enters into our eyes, and the brain processes the signal, and an image is formed in the brain. So if there won’t be any light we see only darkness. Just imagine entering a proper darkroom without a single source or point of light, you will see only black. So it’s only light that has filled up the color to the world.
5. Different colors because of light:
We know that light comprises 7 colors known as VIBGYOR. We see just the combination of all these seven colors. We see this magic and colorful world just because of these 7 colors of light. Have you ever wondered why something looks red and why something is blue? So the red material can absorb all the other six colors of lights and only reflects red that is why we see it as red.
6. All objects produce light
All objects produce radiation whether it’s dead or alive, you or me. The radiations can not be seen as does not fall under the visible light category but somehow these radiations are 24 x 7 emitted out from everything. When we heat up something, then this light comes out and we can easily find out the different wavelength light in the flames.
Light is much more than I explained above but to understand the light these are some basic things that you always have to keep in mind and help you to imagine the universe in a much better way.
