ELECTROMAGNETIC

WAVES

Unit 1. Waves
Medium and energy transport
Waves travel through a medium. Air
Water
A medium is a substance, for example: Rope
Glass
Rock,
etc.
There is a type of wave
that do not require a Electromagnetic
medium to travel through wave
and transport the energy.
The electromagnetic wave
An electromagnetic wave is a form of wave that has an electric and a
magnetic component.

Ele
com ctric
pon
ent

Mag
com netic
https://en.wikipedia.org/ pon
ent

Electromagnetic waves are TRANSVERSE

WAVES sometimes simply called light!
https://tenor.com/
The electromagnetic spectrum
Long Wavelength Short

Low
Frequency High
Frequency and
Frequency and
Energy
Energy
https://www.khanacademy.org/
 Visible light

Low High
frequency frequency

Red Orange Yellow Green Blue Indigo Violet

 What is light?
Light is a way of transferring energy. Light sources
give out light.

Light can reach us from

the Sun.

The Sun’s light travels

through the empty space
because light does not
need a medium to travel
through.
The speed of light
…in empty space
From the Sun, light
travels 150 000 000 km
to reach the Earth.

The Sun light emitted

reaches Earth in around
8 minutes only!

Light travels at 300 000 km/s.

Nothing travels faster than light.

The speed of light
…in a substance
Distan Empty space: 300 000 km/s
ce in 1
secon
d
Air
299 337 km/s

Water
225 308 km/s
Light slows down in
Glass a substance.
199 558 km/s
A more dense
Diamond material will slow
124 724 km/s
light down more.
https://www.olympus-lifescience.com/
REFLECTION,
REFRACTION &
DISPERSION
Unit 1. Waves
Light can be… Absorbed
Incoming light Transmitted

Opaque Transparent

Glass absorbed part of the

Ultraviolet light and Infrared light
https://matthewtaylorlightandcolor.weebly.com/
Hewitt, Paul G, and Phillip R. Wolf. Conceptual Physics Fundamentals. San Francisco: Pearson Addison Wesley, 2008. Print.
 Incom
ing li
Light can be… ght

Reflection is when light

te d
bounces off an object. flec
Re

Types of reflection
 Types of reflection
Regular reflection Difuse reflection

https://en.wikipedia.org/
https://spaceforscience.wordpress.com/

Light reflected from a Light reflected is not

smooth surface produces a sharp or clear and
clear and sharp reflection. looks irregular.
 Incom
ing li
Light can be… ght

Re
When light travels from one

fra
ct
substance to another, such as

ed
from air to water, light can
change direction.

This ‘bending’ of light

is called refraction.
Where should the hunter throw the spear to catch
the fish?

https://mammothmemory.net/
 Light can be…
Incoming light Dispersed
The process of splitting
white light into separate
colours is called dispersion
https://www.bbc.co.uk/

https://www.shutterstock.com/

White light is just a

mixture of colours.
Making connections: rainbow science

Refraction

Raindrops send
sunlight into your eyes
to produce the bow.

Reflection
Color: selective reflection
Dispersion happens because different colours of light
are refracted by different amounts.

• Red light is refracted the least

• Yellow light is refracted more than red
• Violet light is refracted the most.

A color corresponds
to a frequency

https://commons.wikimedia.org/
 The content of this presentation, text and images
(without links), has been adapted from:

Reynolds, H. (2014). Complete Physics for

Cambridge Secondary 1 Student Book: For
Cambridge Checkpoint and beyond (Illustrated ed.).
Oxford University Press.