Types of Light - visible light, electromagnetic spectrum, frequency, range
Types of Light
visible light, electromagnetic spectrum, frequency, range
Light Unit
Almost all of Earth's energy comes from the Sun. In fact, the sun can provide more energy in one hour
than everyone on Earth could use in a whole year. All that energy moves in waves. Your eyes can see
only a small part of that light, about as much as one raindrop in a bucket. But the light you cannot see
packs lots of energy. It can give you a sunburn at the beach or help your doctor see a broken bone.
Picture yourself at the beach. You stand at the end of a fishing pier and watch the waves travel past you.
You look at your watch and count the waves: one, two, three waves pass you in a minute. You can time
light waves in the same way, only they move far faster. Frequency is how often something happens. You
may eat three times a day, while your best friend eats five times a day. When it comes to light, you can
measure frequency by counting how many waves pass by in a second.
Different kinds of light waves have their own frequencies and amounts of energy. When you look at a light
bulb, the light looks white, but it is really a mix of all the colors, each with its own frequency. The light your
eyes can see, like all the colors of the rainbow, is less than 3% of the light the sun makes. That is like a
few pails of sand at the beach. A range is a smaller part of a larger thing. The range of light we can see
is very small compared to all the different light.
When sunlight shines through drops of water or a piece of glass called a prism, it breaks apart the white
light into the colors of the rainbow. You see color when something soaks up light and bounces back one
color. A blue shirt soaks up all the colors of light except blue and bounces the blue back to your eyes.
There is a lot of light that you cannot see, but you can see all the colors of the rainbow. The frequencies
of light you can see are called visible light.
All the different kinds of light, the light you can see and the light you cannot see, move at the same speed.
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Types of Light - visible light, electromagnetic spectrum, frequency, range
It takes eight minutes for light to go from the Sun, which is 93 million miles away, to Earth. That is about
186,000 miles a second! Compare that to a car, which may drive 65 miles an hour on the freeway. All
energy that moves in waves at the speed of light is part of the electromagnetic spectrum. This includes
light you can see, x-rays, microwaves that cook your food, and ultraviolet light that can burn your skin at
the beach.
While an hour of sunlight could power the whole world for a year, you can see very little of it. The part of
the electromagnetic spectrum that you can see is just a drop in the bucket. Still, for most people, your
eyes are your strongest sense. Without that light, you could not learn about the world around you. You
also might not be able to look at a broken bone or turn the TV off or on with a remote. Light gives us
power in more ways than one!
References:
Allday, Jonathan. Light and Sound. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002. Print. The Young Oxford
Library of Science, vol. 6.
Abromowitz, Mortimer, Thomas J. Fellers and Michael W. Davidson. "The Nature of Electromagnetic
Radiation."• Molecular Expression' Optical Microscopy Primer: Light and Color. Optical Microscopy
Division. National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, 2005.
<http://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/primer/lightandcolor/electromagintro.html>
"Electromagnetic Spectrum." World of Physics. Gale, 2010. Gale Science In Context.
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Reference&action=2&catId=&documentId=GALE|CV2434500140&userGroupName=dc_demo&zid=7ec5a
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"Electromagnetic spectrum." U*X*L Encyclopedia of Science. U*X*L, 2007. Gale Science In Context.
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Fowler, Michael. "The Speed of Light."• Galileo and Einstein. University of Virginia Physics Department.
<http://galileoandeinstein.physics.virginia.edu/lectures/spedlite.html>
Hamilton, Gina L. Light. New York: Weigl Publishers Inc., 2009. Print. Science Q & A.
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Types of Light - visible light, electromagnetic spectrum, frequency, range
"On the Move." Energy. Chris Woodford. London: Dorling Kindersley, 2007. 32-35. See for Yourself. Gale
Virtual Reference Library. Web. 13 Sep. 2012.
Smythe, William R. "Electromagnetic radiation." AccessScience. McGraw-Hill Companies, 2008. Web. 12
Sep. 2012.
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