Lesson 2

Light: Wave or Particle

There are two major theories of light:

energy electromagnetic
Light is a form of ____________ known as _______________________ radiation, it carries
thermal energy, is able to travel through all medium including a ____________,
____________ vacuum and a small
spectrum
portion of the electromagnetic _________________ (400 nm-700 nm) is detected by human eyes to
optics
create images (_____________).
light
It was once thought by the Greeks that our own eyes emitted ___________ rays which would reflect off
luminous
objects and make their way back to our eyes. However, __________________ objects emit the light in all
directions that eventually reflect off objects and those rays make it to our eyes.

What are some properties of light that are known?

straight rectilinear
1. Light travels in _________________ lines from a light sources↑ (known as __________________

propagation
____________________) r4
~ mirror
off
&
&
reflect of reflective change
2. Light can ______________ of ___________________ materials, so it can ______________
direction.

mediums
3. Light can travel through different _________________ and in doing so can “slows down” or
normal
“bends toward the ______________”, refraction
this is known as _________________. Partial
reflection
____________________ refraction
and _____________________ can also occur.

diffraction
4. When light meets an obstacle it will cause __________________ or the spreading of light.

Dispersion
5. When light travels through a prism _________________ occurs or
colours
separates into all of the ______________
the and the white light
auw
of the visible spectrum.

I
S
6. When different appl interference
light light waves interact, __________________ occurs.
 wave
Why does light behave this way? There are two leading theories, the light is a _____________ or a
particle
______________.

Wale particle
Huygen (1678) a mathematician and physicist. The particle theory was proposed by Newton. He
Developed the Huygen principle. suggested light is made up of particles called
wavefronts
Light travels in ________________ composed of corpuscles
______________. These particles travel in a
wave lets
smaller circular ________________ (point straight lines but can be reflected off
________________
source) that spread out in front of the wave at the refract
materials and ______________ through other
same speed as the wave itself. These wavelets materials causing their speeds to change.
are what demonstrate most of the properties of Newton’s particle theory described these
light. wavefront properties of light.

·_ wavelets Rectilinear Propagation -particles travel

straight
nation
in a

000 line
,
Reflection light
Diffraction
O go particles and of
ord law

)
follow
& motion

Refractionnewton thought the

-

Reflection particles of light interacted

with the particles of the new
⑨
6
/

↑ ↑&
·

. medium causing them to "speed up"

8 Dispersion
G
the colours
I
has and
Refraction
Light mass
So
their own mass
all have
.

went into a
when white light
-
o

light slowed down

n
the
· prism
N

or sped up based on
the mass

Partial reflection and refraction

of the particle .

wavefront
because each wavelets
made up of
multiple
is
reflect andsome will
some will
refract
 Newton was unable to describe
Huygen theory was somewhat able to describe _______________, or partial reflection/refraction.
diffraction
rectilinear
______________ ________________
propagation however it He tried to explain partial reflection/refraction as
wasn’t totally accepted because it was assumed the ‘fits’ model. Some particles would fit into the
the wavelets would spread in a circular motion. new medium and refract through while those that
didn’t fit would reflect.
Huygen also assumed the light was a
longitudinal
__________________ wave just like sound, Newton tried to explain diffraction as the collisions
therefore it needed a medium known as the of the particles with the edges of the obstacle
either
______________ to propagate through. This did causing them to change direction. This wasn’t
not help with explaining dispersion, interference, really accepted as when introduced to two
polarization or something known as the interference
obstacles an __________________ can be seen.
photoelectric effect (radiation that can cause the If it was just particles that travel in straight lines a
electrons
emission of ________________). It was later pattern should be observed below instead of what
confirmed that light does not need a is actually seen in the picture on the left.
medium
______________ to travel through and exhibits
transverse
properties of a ___________________ wave
therefore interference, dispersion and polarization
can be explained BUT photoelectric effect can
particle theory
only be described by the ______________
of light.

wave However, if
Is light a wave or particle? For the purposes of this course we will consider it a ___________.
particle (known
looking at light at the quantum level it is more appropriate to think of it as a _________________
photon
as ____________), this is known as the dual nature of light. Electrons are also known to have this
property.