LIGHT:

Electromagnetic
Waves/Radiation

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 Learning Objectives

• Distinguish Light as electromagnetic

wave and electromagnetic radiation
• Explain how we can see Light as a
part of electromagnetic spectrum
• Determine the characteristics of
Light
• Measure Light through Illumination

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Light

• What is LIGHT?
• WHERE DOES IT COME FROM?

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 What is Light?

• Light is a wave, or rather acts like a

wave.
• How do we know?

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What is Light
• Light is a special type of wave
• What we know as light or VISIBLE
LIGHT is actually a type of something
called ELECTROMAGNETIC RADIATION.
• So, what is electromagnetic radiation
and electromagnetic waves?

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Electromagnetic Radiation and Waves
• When something creates energy it
also emits radiation. Depending on
the amount of energy, the object
will emit different types of
electromagnetic radiation.
• When we studied mechanical waves,
they were all transferred through a
medium. What medium is light
transferred through?
• LIGHT DOES NOT NEED ONE!
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Electromagnetic Waves
• When we studied mechanical
waves, they were all transferred
through a medium. What medium
is light transferred through?
• LIGHT DOES NOT NEED ONE!
• Electromagnetic waves are special
in the fact that they do not need
a medium to propagate through.

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Electromagnetic Waves
• Electromagnetic waves are
everywhere.
• Light is only a small part of them
– Radios – Radiation
– TVs – Lasers
– Microwaves – CD/DVD
– Light (Visible/UV/InfraRed) players
– X-Rays

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Speed of Electromagnetic Waves

• It has been found that the speed of E-

M waves and light is ---
– 3 x 108 or 300,000,000
meter/second
– 671,000,000 mile per hour
– 186,000 miles per second
– We call this value “c”

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Back to Light as E-M waves

• So, why can we only see a

small portion of these E-M
waves?

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 Visible Light
• We now know what we see is part of
the electromagnetic spectrum. We
know that the light waves enter our
eye, and stimulate parts of it that
cause a electrical impulse to be sent
to the brain which creates this visual
image.

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Electromagnetic Spectrum

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 Seeing things
• We know that when waves run into a
boundary, they are partially transmitted
and partially reflected.
• Light behaves as a wave, so it to is
reflected.
• Therefore, an object does not need to
emit photons to be seen, it just has to
reflect light back to our eyes where we
can detect it.

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CHARACTERISTICS OF LIGHT

– Reflection
– Refraction
– Dispersion
– Diffraction
– Interference
– Polarization

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 1. Reflection
• Different objects may emit different
wavelengths of E-M radiation, so we would
see that light as different colors.
• But why do we see colors in objects that
reflect light? If you shine a white light on
my clothes, and it gets reflected why
doesn’t all of my clothes appear white?
• When I shine white light through a colored
piece of plastic, why does it change color?

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 Color Reflection

• The light we see is know as visible or

white light – although it is not that simple.
• The light is not really white, the white we
see is a combination of all the colors of
the rainbow.
• Remember R-O-Y G. B-I-V from art class.
• When all of these light waves are
combined we see white light.

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 Color Reflection
• So if we see something as WHITE, that
means …
– It reflected back all the wavelengths of
light to our eyes
• If we see something as RED or BLUE
– It reflected only the RED or only the
BLUE wavelengths
– The others were absorbed.
• And if we see something as black?
– It did not reflect back any of the light.

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2. Refraction
• Refraction is the bending of a wave when
it enters a medium where its speed is
different. The refraction of light when it
passes from a fast medium to a slow
medium bends the light ray toward the
normal to the boundary between the two
media.

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 Refraction
• The amount of bending depends on the
indices of refraction of the two media and
is described quantitatively by Snell's Law.
• The refractive quality of lenses is
frequently used to manipulate light in
order to change the apparent size of
images.
• Magnifying glasses, spectacles, contact
lenses, microscopes and refracting
telescopes are all examples of this
manipulation.
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 3. Dispersion of Light
• Rainbow, aren’t they beautiful? Have you
ever wondered how a rainbow is created?
It is a simple physical phenomenon
called dispersion of light. So, what is the
dispersion of light?
• Splitting of white light into seven
constituent colours when passed through
the prism. Prism is an optical element
which is transparent with flat, polished
surfaces that refract light.

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 Dispersion of Light
• The separation of visible light into its
different colors is known as dispersion.
• It was mentioned in the Light and Color
unit that each color is characteristic of a
distinct wave frequency; and different
frequencies of light waves will bend
varying amounts upon passage through a
prism.

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 4. Diffraction of Light
• Diffraction refers to various phenomena
that occur when a wave encounters an
obstacle or opening. It is defined as the
bending of waves around the corners of an
obstacle or through an aperture into the
region of geometrical shadow of the
obstacle/aperture.

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 Diffraction of Light
• Diffracted light can produce fringes of
light, dark or colored bands. An optical
effect that results from the diffraction of
light is the silver lining sometimes found
around the edges of clouds or coronas
surrounding the sun or moon.

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 5. Interference of Light
• Interference is a natural phenomenon that
happens at every place and at every
moment. Yet we don’t see interference
patterns everywhere. Interference is the
phenomenon in which two waves
superpose to form the resultant wave of
the lower, higher or same amplitude. The
most commonly seen interference is the
optical interference or light interference.

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 Interference of Light
• The most common example of
interference of light is the soap bubble
which reflects wide colours when
illuminated by a light source.

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 6. Polarization of Light
• Natural sunlight and almost every other
form of artificial illumination transmits
light waves whose electric field vectors
vibrate in all perpendicular planes with
respect to the direction of propagation.
When the electric field vectors are
restricted to a single plane by filtration,
then the light is said to be polarized with
respect to the direction of propagation
and all waves vibrate in the same plane.

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 Types of object in relation to Light

• Objects that do not allow light to pass

through them are called opaque.
• Objects that allow light to pass through
them are considered transparent.
• Objects in between are called translucent.

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Measurement of LIGHT

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 Flux
• We now know how light behaves, but we
must measure how strong it is.
• The rate at which a source emits light is
called the LUMINOUS FLUX (P).
• What do you think this is measured in? What
are light bulbs measured in.
• LUMINOUS FLUX (P) is actually measured in
something called a lumen (lm).
• A typical 100-W bulb emits 1750 lm.

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Illuminance
• Illuminance (E) is the amount of light falling
on, or illuminating, a given surface. It can
also be defined as the number of lumens
falling on 1m2. The unit of measurement to
quantify this amount of light on certain
surfaces and objects is the Lux
• The illumination of a surface is called
illuminance, E. It is measured in lumens
per square meter, lm/m2 or lux (lx)

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 Illumination = luminous flux (P)
area (A)
E = lm / m2

1 candela = 4π lumens
(approximately 12.57 lumens)

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Sample:

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THE END
Engr. Melannie P. Adante

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