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When light strikes the interface between a medium with refractive index n 1 and a second medium with refractive index n 2, both reflection and refraction of the light may occur. The Fresnel equations give the ratio of the reflected wave's electric field to the incident wave's electric field, and the ratio of the transmitted wave's electric ...
In 1890, Rydberg proposed on a formula describing the relation between the wavelengths in spectral lines of alkali metals. [2]: v1:376 He noticed that lines came in series and he found that he could simplify his calculations using the wavenumber (the number of waves occupying the unit length, equal to 1/λ, the inverse of the wavelength) as his unit of measurement.
The equation says the matter wave frequency in vacuum varies with wavenumber (= /) in the non-relativistic approximation. The variation has two parts: a constant part due to the de Broglie frequency of the rest mass ( ℏ ω 0 = m 0 c 2 {\displaystyle \hbar \omega _{0}=m_{0}c^{2}} ) and a quadratic part due to kinetic energy.
In physics and mathematics, wavelength or spatial period of a wave or periodic function is the distance over which the wave's shape repeats. [1] [2] In other words, it is the distance between consecutive corresponding points of the same phase on the wave, such as two adjacent crests, troughs, or zero crossings.
The refractive index of materials varies with the wavelength (and frequency) of light. [27] This is called dispersion and causes prisms and rainbows to divide white light into its constituent spectral colors. [28] As the refractive index varies with wavelength, so will the refraction angle as light goes from one material to another.
where λ is the wavelength of the absorbed/emitted light and R H is the Rydberg constant for hydrogen. The Rydberg constant is seen to be equal to 4 / B in Balmer's formula, and this value, for an infinitely heavy nucleus, is 4 / 3.645 0682 × 10 −7 m = 10 973 731.57 m −1. [3]
The last expression in the first equation shows that the wavelength of light needed to ionize a hydrogen atom is 4π/α times the Bohr radius of the atom. The second equation is relevant because its value is the coefficient for the energy of the atomic orbitals of a hydrogen atom: E n = − h c R ∞ / n 2 {\displaystyle E_{n}=-hcR_{\infty }/n ...
The Sellmeier equation is an empirical relationship between refractive index and wavelength for a particular transparent medium. The equation is used to determine the dispersion of light in the medium. It was first proposed in 1872 by Wolfgang Sellmeier and was a development of the work of Augustin Cauchy on Cauchy's equation for modelling ...