Tuesday, March 29, 2016

Light - 1

Recall that waves can be categorized into two major divisions:

Mechanical waves, which require a medium. These include sound, water and waves on a (guitar, etc.) string

Electromagnetic waves, which travel best where there is NO medium (vacuum), though they can typically travel through a medium as well. All electromagnetic waves can be represented on a chart, usually going from low frequency (radio waves) to high frequency (gamma rays). This translates to: long wavelength to short wavelength.

All of these EM waves travel at the same speed in a vacuum: the speed of light (c). Thus, the standard wave velocity equation becomes:


c = f l



where c is the speed of light (3 x 10^8 m/s), f is frequency (in Hz) and l (which should actually be the Greek letter, lambda) is wavelength (in m).

General breakdown of e/m waves from low frequency (and long wavelength) to high frequency (and short wavelength):

Radio
Microwave
IR (infrared)
Visible (ROYGBV)
UV (ultraviolet)
X-rays
Gamma rays

In detail, particularly the last image:



http://www.unihedron.com/projects/spectrum/downloads/full_spectrum.jpg

Don't forget - electromagnetic waves should be distinguished from mechanical waves (sound, water, earthquakes, strings on a guitar/piano/etc.). 

ALL E/M waves (in a vacuum) travel at the SPEED OF LIGHT (c).




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