Light Theory Of Light Essay

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What is light? It is an electromagnetic radiation that is visible to the human eye, and is responsible for the sense of sight. (slideshare, 2014) Light is part of the electromagnetic spectrum, which ranges from radio waves to gamma rays. (Andor, n.d.) The wave theory of light A Dutch astronomer, Christian Huygens, developed the wave theory of light in the late 1600s. In this theory, he thought of light as a longitudinal wave. This theory states that light is emitted in a series of waves that spread out from a light source is various directions. (Tanbeen, 2014) James Maxwell added to the wave theory of light when he developed the theory of electromagnetism. It is said that light waves consist of both magnetic and electric fields and the fields …show more content…

In this experiment, Young allowed a ray of light to pass through a pinhole and strike a card. He hypothesised that if light contained particles or simple straight-line rays, the light not blocked by the card would pass through the slits and travel in a straight line and form two bright spots on the screen. But instead a pattern of light and dark strips formed. Young explained this pattern by comparing it to a water wave with crests and troughs. This then lead to the conclusion that light is a wave because as the light went through the slits and onto the screen, the light beams interfered with each other as there were dark and light beams on the page, meaning that where the crests met, the light was bright and where a crest and trough met the light was darker as crests and troughs cancel each other out. (William Harris and Craig Freudenrich, n.d.) It was the concluded that light must be a wave as it shows the properties of waves. The particle theory of light It was first hypothesised by Isaac Newton that light consisted of a lot of small particles which were emitted in all directions from a source, such as metal. Albert Einstein believed that light was composed of tiny particles called photons, and each photon has energy, after studying the photoelectric