What I learned: How Light Works.

Light, light, light, and more light! We see it all the time. However we can’t taste it, we cannot touch it, we can’t smell it, we can’t really hear it! So WHAT is it? I’m sure that you are on the edge of your seat, JUST WAITING, for me to tell you.  Light is a noun and it is something that makes things visible or affords illumination: ex. All colors depend on light. As you can see, light is easily defined in a dictionary, but humans have been boggled by the concept of light for a while, well, since forever started. However, in science class I realized that order to understand light, we must know what we actually see of light (visible light), is filtered through our Earth’s atmosphere and reflected off of various objects and surfaces.  This, my friend is how we see light and how it works.

Light is so important that it has a place in a big thing called the “electromagnetic spectrum. ” The picture below is basically what I learned in science class. I learned that visible light is a very small part of the electromagnetic spectrum. It is spilt up into something called RoyGBiv, which stands for red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet.  Red has the lowest wave frequency and violet has the highest wave frequency.

What I found difficult about studying light is remembering how we see light. It’s a hard concept to remember (that light is filtered through our atmosphere; it’s kind of mind blowing actually).  When I was studying my problem solving skills kicked in once again!  I studied by just memorizing the electromagnetic spectrum and remembering it for the quiz. My problem when studying was doing it creatively. My studying is usually just “cold turkey.”

            When thinking about how light related to my life, I couldn’t really think of much, but then this popped up in my head… (still thinking actually). I saw that my “visible light” (outward appearance) is only a small part of me (the electromagnetic spectrum). Our “visible light” is our clothes, our skin, our face… etc. , but our true personality can’t really be seen. You have to get to know a person before you know their personality.

            Anyways, I enjoyed studying light, how we see it and how it works. I hope that someday we will know even more about the wonderful, mysterious, elusive, world of light.

-Caitlin

Sources:          

http://www.howstuffworks.com/light.htm