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The experiment belongs to a general class of "double path" experiments, in which a wave is split into two separate waves (the wave is typically made of many photons and better referred to as a wave front, not to be confused with the wave properties of the individual photon) that later combine into a single wave.
This example shows the general principle using visible light as a specific example. A white light source—emitting light of multiple wavelengths—is focused on a sample (the pairs of complementary colors are indicated by the yellow dotted lines). Upon striking the sample, photons that match the energy gap of the molecules present (green light ...
The weakness of the wave theory was that light waves, like sound waves, would need a medium for transmission. The existence of the hypothetical substance luminiferous aether proposed by Huygens in 1678 was cast into strong doubt in the late nineteenth century by the Michelson–Morley experiment.
By definition, visible light is the part of the EM spectrum the human eye is the most sensitive to. Visible light (and near-infrared light) is typically absorbed and emitted by electrons in molecules and atoms that move from one energy level to another. This action allows the chemical mechanisms that underlie human vision and plant photosynthesis.
When light propagates in fibre optic cable, the setup is effectively a combination of a Sagnac experiment and the Fizeau experiment. In glass the speed of light is slower than in vacuum, and the optical cable is the moving medium. In that case the relativistic velocity addition rule applies.
In a dispersive prism, material dispersion (a wavelength-dependent refractive index) causes different colors to refract at different angles, splitting white light into a spectrum. A compact fluorescent lamp seen through an Amici prism. Dispersion is the phenomenon in which the phase velocity of a wave depends on its frequency. [1]
Unguided electromagnetic waves in free space, or in a bulk isotropic dielectric, can be described as a superposition of plane waves; these can be described as TEM modes as defined below. However in any sort of waveguide where boundary conditions are imposed by a physical structure, a wave of a particular frequency can be described in terms of a ...
Light passing into a medium with higher refractive index bends toward the normal by the process of refraction (Figure a.). Take, for example, light passing from air into glass. Similarly, light traveling in the opposite direction (from glass into air) takes the same path, bending away from the normal. This is a consequence of time-reversal ...