SP5 Light And The Electromagnetic Spectrum Flashcards
What is a ray diagram
It’s a way of modelling what happens when light is reflected or refracted
What’s a normal
A line drawn at right angles to the barrier/mirror
What are the incident angles
The incident angle is the angle between the normal and incident Ray - reflected Ray’s are always measured from the normal too
What’s the law of reflection
When waves are reflected, the angle of reflection is always equal to the angle of incidence
What’s refraction
When a wave changes direction due to entering a different material -
when light meets the interface along the normal/ at right angles there is no change in direction
How does light refract
It bends towards normal of it goes into a medium when is travels more slowly
Bends away from normal it it goes into normal where is travels faster
When the incidence angle increases the refraction angle…
Increased until the light passes along the interface
What’s total internal reflection
When the angle of incidence increases so much light is reflected inside glass -
What’s the critical angle
The angle of incidence when total internal refraction starts to happen
When does total internal reflection occur
At angles of incidence greater than the critical angle - light is totalling reflected by glass block
What happens when the critical angle is equal to the incidence angle
The refracted light passes along the interest with some light being reflected
What is diffuse reflection
When a material has a rough surface, light is scattered in all directions
What’s specular reflection
On very smooth surfaces such as mirrors, light reflects evenly
What is white light
The light from the sun, it’s actually made up of different colours that our eyes see as white
It can be split up into the colours of the visible spectrum using a prism
Why would a red object look red
It would look red because it reflects red and absorbed all the other colour
A white object looks white Becuase it reflects all of the colours
What are filters
Pieces of transparent material that absorb some of the colours in white light, etc a blue filter transmits blue light and absorbs all other colours
What’s a lens
A piece of transparent material shaped to refract light in particular ways
What does the power of th lens show
How much it bend light that passes through , a more powerful lens is more curved and bends more light
What’s a converging lens
Is fatter in the middle than the edges, it makes parallel Ray’s of light converge to a focal point
What’s the focal length
The distance between the focal point and the centre of the lens
What’s a diverging lens
Is thinner in the middle that the edges
The focal point is the point from when the Rays seem to be coming after passing through the lens (it’s where the rays are originally parallel
What can a converging lens be used for
Focus Ray’s of light on to s screen. An image can be projected in to a screen in this way - we call this a REAL IMAGE
What’s a real image and how is it made
When an image can be projected onto a screen and can only be formed by light rays that come together
What’s a virtual image and how is it formed
An object close to a converging lens will form a virtual image
It can not be projected onto a screen and appears to be on the same side of the lens as the object - it’s upright and Magnified
What kind of image of image do diverging lens produce
Virtual images that’s are the same way up and diminished and closer to the lens than object
What are the frequencies of light that are eyes can detect also known as
Viable light - different frequencies cause us to see different colours
Tell me about colour frequencies
Red is a lower frequency
Blue is a higher frequency