LIGHT

 Light - a type of energy - transmitted in the form of an electromagnetic wave - wavelength

between 3900Å to 7800Å.
 Light is an electromagnetic wave which moves in a straight line. Light is a transverse wave and
does not require a medium to move
 The ability of a medium to reflect light is also expressed by its light density.
 When light enters the denser medium through the rare medium, its speed decreases
 Ole Roemer measured the speed of light for the first time in history in 1676
 Speed of light varies in different mediums
Speed of light in:
Vacuum 3 ×108 m/s
GAS > LIQUID > SOLID
Water 2.25 × 108 m/s
Glass 2 × 108 m/s

 Max Planck gave quantum theory of light

Energy of a quanta,
E = hν = hc/λ h is the plank constant and ν is the frequency of incident light.
 Object which do not emit light on their own are called non-luminous objects.
 Objects that give out or emit light or give/produce their own light are called as luminous objects.
 Moon is a non-luminous object because it does not emits its own light and glows by reflecting the
light of the sun.
 Sun, bulb and candle give out or emit their own light and hence, are luminous objects
 Light transmits through:
TRANSLUCENT TRANPARENT OPAQUE

Materials through which Materials through which Materials through which

objects can be seen, objects can be seen objects cannot be seen
but not clearly
GLASS | WATER | AIR WOOD | METAL
BUTTER PAPER

 When an opaque object is placed between an extended source of light and a screen, we obtain,
on the screen, a shadow consisting of two parts:
UMBRA – an inner part PENUMBRA – an inner part
The region from which the occluding body appears entirely within the disc of the light source -
antumbra (from the Latin ante "before" and umbra "shadow")
REFLECTION OF LIGHT
 When a ray of light collides with some medium and returns to the same medium again, this
phenomenon is called reflection of light.
 The colour of the grass appears green to us, because it reflects green light back to our eyes.
 The laws of refection include all mirrors whether it is a plane mirror, concave mirror, or convex
mirror and also for all other reflecting surfaces which are not mirrors but act like one for
example water, steel etc.

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 Laws of Reflection
Ist Law of Reflection IInd Law of Reflection
The angle of incidence The incident ray, reflected ray and normal
is equal to the angle of lie in the same plane, and the incident ray
reflection and the reflected ray are one opposite ray.

REFRACTION OF LIGHT
 When rays of light penetrate from one transparent medium to another transparent medium, they
distract out of their original direction - 'refraction of light’
 The light ray will bend towards the normal as it passes from a rarer medium to a denser
medium.
 Refraction has two associated laws
When light travels from rarer to denser When light travels from denser to rare
medium, it bends towards normal medium it bends away from normal

 When a ray of light enters from a denser medium (glass) to a rarer medium (air) it bends away
from the normal, because angle of refraction will be greater than the angle of incidence
 Each beam of light with its own particular wavelength (or colour) is delayed differently by glass
 When light travels from one medium to another medium then incident ray, normal at the point
of incidence and refracted ray all are in the same plane
 A ray of light travelling in air enters a glass slab.
(i) Angle of incidence is greater than the angle of refraction.
(ii) Angle of incidence is equal to angle of emergence
(iii) The emergent ray is parallel to the incident ray

 A ray of light bends to wads the normal while travelling from medium A to medium B, then
speed of light is more in medium A than medium B.
Refractive index of medium B is more than refractive index of medium A
 Refractive index of a material can be linked with relative speed of propagation of light in
different media - the measure of bending of a light ray when passing from one medium to
another.
 Refractive Index (µ) of a medium is defined as the ratio of the velocity of light in air (c) and the
velocity of light in that medium (v).
 If the refraction of light occurs in a medium from vacuum, then the ratio of the sine of the
incidence angle and the sine of the angle of refraction is called the absolute refractive index of
that medium.
 Absolute refractive index =

Absolute refractive index of air 1.0003

Absolute refractive index of water 1.333
Absolute refractive index of diamond 2.417

 The value of absolute refractive index of a medium is always more than 1.

 Refractive index of matter =

 The refractive index of a medium is different for different colours of light.
 The value of refractive index decreases as the wavelength increases.
 The refractive index of a medium relative to air is approximately equal to the absolute refractive
index of that medium
 The ascending order of the refractive index:
ice (1.31) < kerosene (1.44) < benzene (1.5) < rock salt (1.54)

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 Refractive is not related to the flow of heat, when the rays of light enter from one transparent
medium to another transparent medium, the light ray deviate from their original path. It is not
related to heat flow this phenomenon is refraction.
 There is no SI Unit for refractive index. The refractive index is defined as the ratio between the
speed of light in a vacuum and its speed in a particular medium.
 The light which has more wavelength will deviate less
 Refractive index of the medium is inversely proportional to the speed of light in it. As the
refractive index of medium increases the speed of light passing through it decreases.
 When light travels from one medium to another, it changes the speed at which the light travels
 A beam of white light undergoes dispersion though a triangular glass prism forming a band of
seven colours. The red coloured compound has minimum refractive index
 As violet light has a shorter wavelength it is delayed more than longer wavelengths of red light.
consequently, violet light is bent most while red light in bent the least.
 When a light is incident along to the normal and from air to water, then the direction of light will
not be change because when a light ray incident perpendicular on the plane which separates
two medium then there is no refraction of light ray takes place
 A ray of light undergoes refraction through a triangular glass prism. The angle between
incident ray and emergent ray is called angle of deviation
 The angle of incidence for a ray of light incident on a glass slag along its normal will be zero
degree
 Applications on Refraction
When a pencil is placed in a glass filled Appearance of a stick bent at the interface
with water, the pencil looks bent when immersed in water
Rays coming from the sun are refracted by Twinkling of stars occurs because change in
the atmosphere - the apparent flattering of the density of different layers of air causes
the sun at sunset and sunrise is due to change in refractive index continuously
refraction
Fluctuations in the light coming from the
The random wavering of objects seen various points of planet due to refraction in
through a turbulent stream of hot air rising atmosphere get averaged out - reason for no
above a fire due to atmospheric refraction twinkling of planets
A rainbow is observed due to refraction of Sun can be seen above the horizon about
sunlight through rain drops - sunlight is two minutes before actual sunrise
polychromatic - refract through rain drops it
disperse into 7 colours When a coin is placed in a tub filled with
water, the coin appears slightly above the
Lemon placed in a glass filled with water base of the tubs floor
appears larger than its actual size when
The fish lying under the water appears to be
viewed from the outside
above the actual depth.

 Spectacles use the principle of refraction. Optical instruments such as microscopes,

telescopes and cameras use mirrors and lenses to reflect and refract light and from images
 The colour of the sun becomes red while setting is not an example of refraction of light but of
scattering of light - at sunrise and sunset, the Sun ray has to travel a relatively greater distance
through the atmosphere
 In this way most of shorter wavelength light is separated by scattering, so only the red colour
(the least scattering part of the light) reaches our eyes.
 Change in refractive index in atmospheric gases bents the light rays, coming from the star,
many times - reason behind the apparent position change of a star
 The ability of a medium to refract light is also expressed in terms of its "optical density".
 Optical density is not as same as mass density. Optical Density is also referred as
"absorbance".

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  Diamond's low refractive index does not contribute to the sparking of diamonds.
 Snell's law is used to calculate the value of Refractive index
TOTAL INTERNAL REFLECTIONS
 Travelers in deserts often tend to have an optical illusion of a sheet of water where none
actually exists. It is a called mirage.
 Mirage happens when the ground is very hot and the air is cool. The hot ground warms the
layer of air just above the ground. When the light travels through the cold air and enter into the
layer of hot air it is refracted. A layer of very warm air, near the ground refracts the light and
thus mirage occurs.
 When a light ray travelling from a denser medium towards a rarer medium is incident at the
interface at an angle of incidence greater than critical angle, then light rays are reflected back
into the denser medium (i.e. same medium). This phenomenon is called total internal
reflection.
 Optical fibre works on the principal of total internal reflection

SCATTERING OF LIGHT
 Scattering of light - the phenomenon in which light rays get deviated from their straight path on
striking an obstacle like dust or gases molecule water droplets etc.
 Applications of Scattering of Light
Blue colour of the sky and sea
Blue is scattered more than other colours because it travels as shorter and smaller waves
When a car is moving through a dusty road during night, a path of beam from the head
light is clearly visible due total scattering effect of light

White colour of clouds – water droplets scatter all colours of light almost equally - makes
the sunlight appear white

Reddish appearance of sun during sunrise and sunset

 The atmosphere is the main cause of scattering of sunlight

 In the absence of atmosphere, there will be no scattering of sunlight at all - no scattered light
will enter our eyes - the sky will look black or dark - Thus, the sky appears dark instead of blue
to an astronaut.
 When a photograph of earth is taken from space its background looks dark because of no
scattering of light
 Tyndall effect is related to scattering of light.
 The phenomenon of scattering of light by particles present in a colloidal solution is called
Tyndall effect - also be seen by a solution containing small suspended particles - this effect
was named after John Tyndall.
 Red light is more visible than Blue light, because Red light has a higher wave Length
 Clouds can be seen as white because the small water droplets of the cloud scatter very high
amount of red and blue wave length of visible light.
 As the red colour has longest wavelength among all the visible parts of light that's the reason
red colour is scattered least by fog on smoke.
 Red, Green and Blue - the primary or main colours - Secondary colours are obtained by
mixing primary colours
 Red colour deviation angle is the lowest - maximum wavelength in all colours that are present
in rainbow
 Polarization occurs only in transverse waves, which are related to the direction of their
oscillations. The moving sound waves in a gas or liquid do not exhibit the properties of
polarization

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 Sunlight is white light which is the mix of seven colours namely violet, indigo, blue, green,
yellow, orange, and red. We usually called it as VIBGYOR. The sunlight enters into the
atmosphere and scattered. Blue light is scattered more than the other colours because it
travels as shorter, smaller waves. This is why we see a blue sky most of the time. If the
atmosphere is not present then the sky is seen black in colour
 Sir CV Raman - Indian physicist - awarded the prestigious Nobel Prize in Physics in 1930 - for
his outstanding work on the scattering of light.
 Sir CV Raman – 1954 Bharat Ratna - 1957 Lenin Peace Prize
 During the formation of a rainbow, the phenomena of dispersion, refraction and internal
reflection are involved.

DISPERSION OF LIGHT / RAINBOW

 The splitting of light of sum into various colours of rainbow is called dispersion of light.
 Among the 7 constituent colours of light, violet light has the least wavelength and hence it
deviates the most and red light having the largest wavelength deviates the least.
 The order of obtained spectrum of light is VIBGYOR
 The colours of VIBGYOR arranged in the increasing order of their refractive indices will be
Red < Orange < Yellow < Green < Blue < Indigo < Violet
 Red colour light has the lowest frequency and longest wavelength and vice-versa for violet
 A rainbow is formed by water droplets suspended in the atmosphere after the rain shower
 When blue and orange lights, parallel to each other, are passed through prism then blue will
bend more because the wavelength of blue light is less than orange light.
 A spectrum is formed when each colour of the white light is refracted in the prism at a different
angle
OPTICAL INSTRUMENTS
 Optical devices can be used to produce a parallel beam of rays from a point source of light -
concave mirror or a convex lens
 LEDs and CFLs are replacing ordinary bulbs for illumination due to - energy efficiency
 The microscope uses only convex lenses
 Bioscope is used for the study of biology, rock science, metrology, crystal science and metals
and plastics and the car's headlight and flashlight use concave mirrors.
 When watching 3D movies in the theater, we have to wear special glasses, because 3D
movies use special colors, which cannot be felt by human eyes
 Plane mirrors are used in a reflecting periscope.
Two plane mirror are fixed at the bends of the tube at an angle of 45˚ with the side of the tube.
 A stethoscope does not have an optical lens.



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