Lead, Kindly Light

From the beginning of time, Man has been fasci­

nated by the phenomenon of light. Our forefathers
believed that our eyes sent out light so that we could
see things. Yet, there were many enquiring minds that
were not satisfied with this explanation. The questions
raised by them triggered the study of light, and this
eventually evolved into the science of Optics.
The trailblazers in the field of Optics identified light
as a form of energy that travels at the incredible speed
of 299,792, 458 metres per second in a vacuum! It is
notjustthe speed of light that is amazing - every aspect
of it captivates, entrances, and boggles the mind. As
Diwali, the glorious festival of lights, approaches, get
ready to be transported into the wondrous world of
light, in this exciting issue of Teil Me Why.
�-t;;;� .-..
• "

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BENGALURU: Malayala Manorama,

No. 132, Kantha Court, 3rd Floor,
lal,Baugh Road, Bengaluru- 560 027. What is light?
Phone:22247735 136

CHENNAI: Malayala Manorama,

Unit B III Floor, 23, Spur Tank Road,Chetput,
Chennai-600 031. Phone: 044 - 43181405.
W e all know what light is. We also
COIMBATORE: Malayala Manorama,
know that the Sun, fire, bulbs, and
101,Sunshine Buildings,1056, glowworms all give us light. But what
Avinashi Road,Coimbatore - 641 018.
Phone:2241911 / 2245470 exactly is light?
LUCKNOW: Malayala Manorama,
B-1657, Indira Nagar, Lucknow-226 016.
Light is a form of energy that which
Phone: 0522 - 2341576
we can see. It is made up of billions of
CHANDIGARH: Malayala Manorama,
H No. 2252, Ground Floor Annexe, Sector tiny particles called photons. These
21- C, Chandigarh -160 022.
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photons travel from one place to
BHOPAL: Malayala Manorama, another in waves.
Plot No,161,Gopal Bhawan, Zone 1,
M,P. Na9ar, Bhopal. Phone: 0755 - 2557937 The light that we can see consists of
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: photons that move at a wavelength
Malayala Manorama, P,B. No, 160,
Thampanoor East,Thiruvananthapuram- that makes it visible, and is known as
695 001. Phone: 2328198

KOCHI: Malayala Manorama,

visible light.
P.B. No, 5008, Panampilly Nagar,
Kochi - 682 036. Kerala.
Phone: 04a4 - 2316285 Tell Me Why
 Visible light is actually
made up of different colours.
I th ink
Among the different this is the time
photons that are in visible to recharge my
light, the ones that have the torch ...
longest wavelength look red
to us, and the ones that have
the shortest wavelength
look violet to us.
Red, green, and blue are
the primary colours of light.
Mixing them in various ways
will make all other colours,
including white. Isn't that
amazing?

light 5
 The Sun and
Flowers
Our ancestors
observed that
leaves and flowers
Why was the Sun considered a God in of certain plants
ancient times? often turned to
follow the
P eoPle through the ages have
movement of the
Sun in the sky
worshipped the Sun as the source of during the course
light, and therefore, as the source of of a day. This
all life. Our ancestors realized that if plant, known as
there was no Sun, the Earth would be 'sunflower'in
plunged in perpetual darkness. It English, was used
would be unbearably cold, and all the in ancient times to
water on Eart h would freeze up. They worship the Sun
had no clear idea of how the Sun by certain civiliza­
produced light, nor why it moved tions of Central
and South
throughout the sky. They did under­
America.
stand however, that without the Sun,
life would not be possible.
Ancient civilizations were primarily
agricultural, and depended on the
Sun for life, and their crops. Therefore,
it is no surprise that they worshipped
the Sun as a God.

6
Why is light responsible for life on
Earth? Grow up,
g row up
W ithout light, there would baby ....

be no life. Plants need light to

produce food through the
. process known as photosyn­
thesis. Light is the only way for
plants to get the energy to
grow. Animals depend on
plants for their food, either
directly, or indirectly. Human
beingstooeat plants, oranimals
that eat plants. Without light,
all the plants on Earth would Some living creatures like
die - and animals and people fireflies create their own light.
would be left without food, and Others, like Man, have learnt to
would die too. create artificial light when
Light is also important natural light is not available.
because it gives the Earth the Light lets us see things.
warmth needed to support Without any light, we would
different forms of life. see nothing at all.
 How did Man make light?

O ne of the biggest achieve­

ments of Mankind was when our
ancestors learnt how to make fire
in the distant past.
Magic Flames Early Man depended on the
Sun for light during the day, and
Have you heard of the on fire for light at night. Later,
term 'will o'the wisp'? people learnt that by rubbing
It refers to a flame that
two stones or two pieces of wood
is often seeing moving
together, they could produce a
by itself over marshy
areas - quite an eerie spark. This discovery proved to
phenomenon. There is be a turning point in the history
a simple explanation of mankind, for it provided early
for this however. The Man with the knowledge to start
rotting plants in a a firethat would provide him with
marsh or swamp light, warmth, and safety from
produce a gas called wild animals.
methane, while the
remains of rotting A l ight
animals produce a gas dinner is
called phosphine. ready.
When phosphine
meets the air, it causes
a spark, and this spark
ignites the methane
that is present,
creating a naturally
occurring flame. The
flame moves quickly
over the marsh as the
methane catches fire
in different places.

8 Tell Me Why
Why is sunlight white,
while a rainbow has many
colours?

T he light from the Sun

is really a mixture of
many different colours
or wavelengths of light.
The wavelength is
simply the distance in
which a wave repeats
itself. Red light has a long
wavelength, while violet
light has a short
wavelength. The light
that we can see, or visible
light, is actually made up
of different wavelengths
that we see as red,
orange, yellow, green,
blue, indigo, and violet
light. These colours
gradually merge into one another,
and the mixture produces white light.
As white light passes through
droplets of water in the sky, the light is
refracted or bent. The longer
wavelengths of light are refracted
more than shorter wavelengths. This
causes the colours to be separated as
they pass through the raindrops. The
result is the rainbow of seven colours
that you see in the sky!

RADIO WAVES MICROWAVES
Light to Lead
In ancient times, people
made fires at the edge of
the water to warn boats
of.s!.angerous rocks and
shores. Later, light­
houses were built to
serve this purpose. The
first proper lighthouses
were built by the
pharaohs of Alexandria.
INFRARED VISIB
RADIATION LIGHT
What are eledromagnetic waves?
T he heat produced by the
Sun travels from the Sun to the
Earth via waves known as
electromagnetic waves. These
waves can vary greatly in their
wavelength.
Electromagnetic waves
possess both electric and
What is the speed of light?
W e know that light travels
in waves. These waves are not
of the same wavelength. Some
wavelengths are longer than
others. However, all waves
move at exactly the same speed
in a vacuum.
When we talk about the
speed of light, we are referring
to the speed at which light
Tell Me Why
ULTRAVIOLET
RADIATION X-RAYS GAMMA RAYS

magnetic properties. Because Electromagnetic Spectrum

the electromagnetic waves
traveling to the Earth from the
Sun come in a varietyof lengths,
scientists consider them to be a
spectrum. Thus, we call all these
waves together the 'electro­
magnetic spectrum'.
Electromagnetic waves are
divided into many categories.
The shortest waves are gamma
rays, x-rays and ultraviolet
waves. The medium sized
waves are called visible light
waves. Radio waves, micro
waves and infrared waves are
the longest waves.

travels. This is now defined as

299,792.458 km per second in The problem is
empty space. we're going faster
To get an idea of how fast this than l ight. Can't see
is, light can travel about seven what's ahead.
times around the Earth in one
second! Astronomers use the
speed of light to measure how
far away things are in space.
They use a unit called the light
year, which is the distance that
light can travel in one year.

light 11
How did scientists arrive at a
figure for the speed of light?

G alileo, the famous

Italian scientist, made an
attempt to measure the
speed of light in the 1630s,
but all he could prove was
that light travelled very
fast.
In 1728, an English
astronomer, James Bradley,
calculated the speed of
light from the direction in
which light fell from a star
to Earth. He came up with a
figureof 30 1 ,000 kilometres
per second.
In 1849, another scientist,
Fizeau, improved on
Bradley's calculations, and
came up with a new figure:
313,300 kilometres per
second.
In 1923, Albert
Michaelson changed the
figure forthe speed of light.
He said it was nearly
299,798 kilometres per
second. In 1970's, the
speed of light was officially
approved to be
299,792.458 kilometres Galileo
per second.

12 Tell Me Why
 The biggest object that
bounces sunlight is the
Moon. Though we talk of
moonlight, the Moon has
no light of its own. It merely
reflects light from the Sun.

Why is Hyperion associated or the Sun, Eos or Dawn, and Selene

with light? or the Moon. So, Hyperion's
children were said to bring light to
H yperion was the Titan the world.
God of Light. The Titans are
the parents of many of the
Olympian gods and
goddesses worshipped by
the ancient Greeks.
Hyperion' means 'he who
goes before the Sun: He is
sometimes called the 'Titan
of Light'. Hyperion is the
father of the sun, moon,
and dawn. Hyperion
married his sister, Theia,
and they had three
children. They were Helios

Light 13
Why is Prometheus assodated with
light?

P rometheus was a Titan who is

credited with bringing enlightenment
to humans. He stole fire from the
gods, and gave itto mankind, bringing
the power of warmth and light to the
dark and miserable Earth. By doing
this, he angered the gods, who
wanted to keep the power of fire and
enlightenment for themselves. $0
Zeus, king of the Olympian gods,
punished Prometheus by chaining
him to a rock in the Caucasus
Mountains. Every day, his liver was
devoured by a giant eagle, only to
regenerate overnight. Generations Sun Time
later, the great hero Heracles came Sundials were
along and released the old Titan from used by many
his torture. ancient cultures
to help the people
know what time it
was. A stick was
pushed vertically
into the ground,
and the time of
the day could be
calculated by
seeing where its
shadow fell.

Sculpture ofPrometheus

Tell Me Why
What is the importance of wavelength in Visible Spectrum
electromagnetic radiation?
What separates one type
E lectromagnetic radiation refers of electromagnetic
to a form of energy emitted and radiation from another is
absorbed by charged particles, as it its wavelength.
travels through space. This energy Wavelength is important
travels throughout the universe at the because it determines
speed of light, in the form of waves. the characteristics of a
wave.Longerwavelength
waves such as radio
Don't be waves carry low energy.
afraid. It's a short Shorter wavelength
wavelength waves such as x-rays,
l ight.
carry higher energy.
Electromagnetic waves
fill a spectrum with
wavelengths that vary
from thousands of
kilometres long, down to
wavelengths more than
1 020 times smaller. The
wavelengths that make
up visible light comprise
only a tiny fraction of this
�='�.oectn
light 15
Why is Newton's Theory of Light important?

S ir Isaac Newton, one of the greatest

scientists of all time, developed a funda­
mental theory about light that is known as
the Corpuscular Theory.
According to this theory, light consists of
corpuscles which are a stream of discrete,
tiny, light and elastic particles that travel in
perfectly straight lines in all directions.
Every luminous source like the Sun, or a
lamp, or a candle, emits these corpuscles.
According to this theory, we are able to see
different colours because of the difference
in sizes of these corpuscles.
The theory also stated that when
corpuscles hit a surface, each particle is
reflected, and that when light travels from
air into water, it will increase in speed.
Newton's Corpuscular Theory was
important, even though he was wrong on
some points. After 100 years of existence,
it later gave way to the more popular
Christiaan Huygens' Wave Front Theory.

16
Jafhis-M
iixwell Max Planck Christiaan Huygens

What are the other important theories of light?

I n 1678, Dutch physicist Christiaan Huygens

stated that light is made up of waves vibrating
up and down, perpendicular to the direction in
which the light is travelling. Huygens' Theory is
called the Wave Front Theory.
Huygens disagreed with Newton, and said
that light traveling from air to water will
decrease in speed, and vice versa. Later,
Huygens was proved to be correct.
In the 19thcentury,James Maxwell put forward
the Electromagnetic Theory of Light. According
to this theory, light waves are a part of a larger
family of electromagnetic waves, and make up
the electromagnetic spectrum.
The 20th century ushered in the Quantum
Theory put forward by Max Planck, a German
scientist. It stated that light waves travel as
separate packets of energy called quanta or
photons, and it is this theory that is widely
accepted today.

17
 Chameleon'S
Eyes

Emission ofPhotons as a Laser Beam A chameleon's

eyes have a
What are photons? 360-degree arc
of vision. It can
A photon is a bundle of electromag­
rotate each eye
independently
netic energy. It is the basic unit that
of the other,
makes up all light. The photon is and so, can see
sometimes referred to as a 'quantum' of two directions
electromagnetic energy. at once.
All light is made of photons that are so
small that they cannot be seen individ­
ually. They behave in some ways like
particles, and in other ways like waves.
It is not just sunlight and visible light
that is made up of photons; radio waves,
television broadcasts, x-rays, and the
ultraviolet rays are all made up of
photons.
The original concept of the photon
was developed by Albert Einstein, but it
was scientist Gilbert N. Lewis who first
used the word 'photon' to describe this
bundle of electromagnetic energy.

18 Tell Me Why
 A ll of us have seen
our shadows when we go
out in the Sun. In fact, all
objects including trees and
houses have a shadow when they
are in sunlight. Why does this
happen? Sometimes ,objects are able to
block light. An object through which no light
can pass is called opaque. An example is our body. Since light
cannot pass through, it creates a dark area around the object. This
patch where no light falls, is called a shadow.
A shadow moves because the light rays keep changing their
direction in which they fall on the object. If the object moves,
then again the shadow moves, as it is formed whereever
the object blocks light.
Shadows are longest in the early morning and
late evening, and shortest at noon, because of
the angle at which sunlight falls on an
object.
Why are we able to see things?
I n order for us to see, light
enters our eyes through the
black spotcalledthepupilwhich
is really a hole in the eye. The
pupil can change sizes with the
helpof the coloured part around
it, a muscle called the iris. By
opening and closing the pupil,
the iris can control the amount
of light that enters the eye.
Once the light is in our eye, it
passes through fluids, and
lands on the retina at the back
20
of the eye. In order for the light
to be focused on the retina, our
eyes have lenses.
The retina turns the light rays
into signals that our brain can
understand. The retina uses
light-sensitive cells called rods
and cones to see. The rods are
extra sensitive to light, and help
us to see when it's dark. The
cones help us to see colour.
The retina changes light into
electrical signals for our brain.
The brain translates them into
the images that we see.
Tell Me Why
 Why are the eyes of some animals
How can I
put on these amazing?
specs?
M any animals have adaptations
that make their eyes truly amazing.
Pigeons can bend their cornea -
the transparent, dome-shaped
window covering the front of the
eye that bends light- and this
allows them to bring objects into
sharper focus.
The squid can move its lens away,
or towards the retina, while diving
birds have extra muscles around
the lens that squeeze it to give
sharper focus.
Butterflies have two sets of eyes,
and their compound eyes are
among the most complex in the
world, for they allow butterflies to
see one of the broadest ranges of
colour available to any animal on
the planet.
The snail has evolved a unique
pair of eyes that settle at the tips of
their eyestalks, located on the
head. When sensing any danger,
the snail is able to quickly retreat its
eyes intoa protective shell, keeping
them free from injury!
In short, animals have an
incredible variety of eyes. The list is
extraordinary, and practically
never-ending.

21
Why are the eyes of simple marine
animals spedal?

T he simplest forms of eyes are

not eyes in the sense we know
but light-sensitive areas called
eyespots which can only detect
differences between light and Eyes over Water
dark.
The mudskipper,
Eyespots are found in certain
a small fish that
algae and single-celled marine spends much of
organisms. Over the ages, some its time on land
simple forms of marine life hunting for food,
developed primitive eyes called has eyes that pop
ocelli, which can distinguish up like twin
between light and shadow, periscopes when
though they are unable to form it goes into the
an image. water. These eyes
The microscopic marine sit on stalks, and
organism called Copilia has periscope above
the surface, while
remarkable eyes which make up
the rest of the
more than half of its transparent mudskipper
body, and these eyes can actually remains safely
form images. underwater.
What are rods and (ones?
Rods and cones are special cells
that line the retina of the eye. They get
their names from their shapes.
Rods are highly sensitive cells
located in the outer area of the retina
(ones Rods
Light
-the lining of the back of
the eye. They are used in
areas of dim light, and
are sensitive to light,
shape, and movement
changes.
Cones are located in
the central area of the
retina. Cones play a key
role in our ability to see
colour.
When light falls on
these cells, the chemicals
in them are altered, and
send signals to the brain
that translates these
signals into images.
23
 Long-sight and Short-sight

What do we know about shortsight and and its power to focus

longsight? don't match up. So,
although you can see
P
eople who wear glasses will tell things close up very
you that they are short-sighted or long­ clearly, things in the
sighted. Do you know what this distance are blurred -
means? You are short-sighted if your like the blackboard in a
eye is too long from front to back, or if classroom.
the curve of your cornea is too steep. Long-sight is when
This means that the length of your eye you can see things that
are far away better than
You don't have you can see things close
short- sight , that's up. For example, you
the diannel's might be able to watch
prob lem.
the television very
clearly, but find it hard
to read a book. Long­
sight may be caused
because the eyeball is
too short, so that light
rays are focused behind
the retina, and the
image is blurry.

24 Tell Me Why
What are compound eyes?

H uman beings and most animals

have simple eyes, but some insects and
marine animals have compound eyes.
Compound eyes are different from
human eyes. Human eyes have a single
lens for each eye, while compound eyes
Auroras
have many lenses.
Each unit has its own surface area, The word
lens, and optic nerve fibre. Each unit 'aurora'means
receives light from a small part of the 'dawn' in Latin.
animal's field of view. The animal's brain Auroras are
combines these views into a single spectacular
image. displays of light
An insect's compound eyes bulge out, seen in the sky
over the Polar
and have a wide field of vision. The
Regions. They
lenses in compound eyes can't change
are caused when
focus, so insects can't see things that tiny electrically
are far away. The compound eye is very charged
good at seeing things nearby, and particles from
detecting motion, which is why it is so the Sun collide
difficult to swat a fly! with the atoms
in the Earth's
Doctor, . atmosphere.
one of these l enses
is not working!

Light 25
How are our eyes protected? A Bird's Third
Eyelid.
Our eyelids snap shut when something
moves suddenly in front of our eyes. This swift
reflex is the body's way of protecting the eyes
from injury.
Animals too, protect their eyes in many
different ways. Most birds have three eyelids.
The third eyelid is a semitransparent tissue,
called the nictitating membrane.
In water birds, the third eyelid has a clear,
goggle-like lens which improves the ability of
the eye to focus under water. Birds also have
long thin feathers over their eyes that act as
eyelashes to keep-out dust.
Desert animals too, have long eyelashes for
protection against sand storms. Snakes and
fish have no eyelids- their eyes are protected
by a glassy coating.

The pupil is a tiny hole in front of the iris

that controls the amount of light entering
the eye. This is important, because too
much light can cause damage to the
retina.

26 Tell Me Why
Why are some animals able to see at night?

Animals that hunt at night are called

nocturnal animals, and their eyes are
specially adapted to see in darkness.
Most nocturnal creatures have large
eyes, with wider pupils and larger lenses.
This makes it possible for their eyes to
gather enough light to stimulate the cells
at the back of the retina, which send
signals to the brain that are translated
into images.
The retina of nocturnal animals is
almost entirely composed of cells known
as rods, that are sensitive to light. In
nocturnal animals, cones are absent or
almost absent, leaving them with virtually
no colour vision.
Some animals have eyes that glow in
the dark. This is because they have a
special adaptation for night vision called
the tapetum.
Why is the lens of the human eye amazing?

L ght enters your eye through a central opening

known as the pupil, which changes size depending
on the amount of light.

Why do the eyes of animals tell us a lot about them?

M ost animals - and Man- have two eyes. Some

animals have compound eyes- but there are also
animals with one eye, three eyes, and even eight eyes!
The freshwater crustacean cyclops has just one
black or red eye in the middle of its head. The tuatara,
which lives only in New Zealand, has three eyes. Some
spiders have eight eyes that give them a near
360-degree view of the world.
Predatory mammals have eyes in the front of their
heads, with powerful eye muscles.

Tell MeWhy
 The coloured area
around the pupil is called
the iris, and it controls the
size of the pupil. The part
of the eye that allows us to
focus on different things is
known as the lens.
The lens of the human
eye is truly amazing. It can
change shape so that we
can focus on objects at
various distances. The lens
consists of about 2,200
infinitely fine layers, which
lie on top of one another,
like the skins of an onion.
The lens in the eye,
unlike the glass lens of a
camera is not rigid- it is, in
fact, highly pliable.
Dog's Vision
Until recently, it was
An animal that is thought that dogs
preyed upon by many didn't see any colour
enemies has its eyes out at all. Recent studies
on the sides of its head, now show, however,
and each eye has its own that dogs can differ­
field of vision. In fact the entiate between red
and blue and can
eyes of an animal tell the
even pick out subtle
story of the creature's life,
differences in shades
its sources of food, its of blue, and violet.
ha bits, its fears, and
the history of its
species.

Light 29

Why are we able to see colour?
T he retina of our eye is
covered by millions of light­
sensitive cells, some shaped
like rods, and some like cones.
There are three types of
cone-shaped cells, each
sensitive to the long, medium,
or short wavelengths of light
which represent the colours
red, green, and blue. These
cells, working in combination
with connecting nerve cells,
give the brain enough infor­
mation to interpret and name
colours. In short, the human
eye and brain together,
translate light into colour.
Hi friend,
p ick your favourite
colour.
6)/
30
�t;
Night Vision
People who have to work
in the dark often wear
night vision goggles.
These goggles are
designed on the principle
that even in pitch
darkness, there is some
reflected light, which we
cannot normally see.
Moreover, all objects give
off 'heat' energy, which is
not visible to the human
eye. Night vision goggles
are designed to collect
and amplify all those tiny
bits of available light so
that our eyes have enough
light to see in the dark.
This is called image
enhancement technology.
The other technology
used in night vision
equipment is called
thermal imaging. It takes
advantage of the infrared
light given off by objects,
which is not visible to
human eyes.
Tell Me Why

How did Newton explain what
white light is?
I n 1665, Sir Isaac Newton was
conducting experiments in a
prism. He discovered that when
a beam of light passes through
the glass, it always 'split' into
the same band of red, orange,
yellow, green, blue, indigo and
violet colours.
When the beam is passed
through a second prism, the
colours recombined and made
white light. Newton's expla­
nation is that ordinary light, or
white light as it is also called, is
made up of the seven colours
Light
Dispersion of White Light
through a Prism
that we see in the rainbow, each
of which has its own
wavelength.
When this ray of light passes
through the prism, it is bent by
the sharp edge of the prism,
and so it splits into the different
wavelengthsthatgo in different
directions- which is why we see
a band of different colours.
When this band passes through
a second prism, the rays are
bent back to their original
shape, and the different colours
come together once again to
emerge as white light.
31
What are primary and
secondary colours of light?

W hite light consists

of seven distinct
colours- red, orange,
yellow, green, blue,
indigo, and violet.
Of these seven
colours, the human eye
has receptors for only
three- red, green, and
blue. These three are
called the 'primary
colours' of light.
The brain interprets
other colours by combi­ Your
nations of these three colour wheel is not
to original , all the
colours form
colours are
secondary colours. The vanishing.
primary colours must
be combined in the
correct amounts so as
to form the second­
aries.
Additional colours are
formed by varying the
quantities. For example,
purple may be formed
by using considerably
more blue light than
red. Conversely, using
more red than blue will
form pink .

32 Tell Me Why
 .
�f�1 :. t(

Convex Lens Concave Lens

Why are convex and concave lenses important

in optics?

A lens is a device that transmits or

refracts light. The surface of the lens can
be convex, in which case it bulges
outwards, or concave, which means that
it curves inwards.
Convex lenses are thicker at the middle.
Rays of light that pass through the lens Origin of , Lens'
are brought closer together. They are said
A convex lens
to converge, and so, a convex lens is also is flat and
called a converging lens. round, with
Concave lenses are thinner at the sides that
middle. Rays of light that pass through bulge
the lens are spread out, and are said to outwards. It
diverge. So, a concave lens is also a called resembles a
diverging lens. lentil seed
Lenses are important in a variety of from which the
optical instruments, ranging from micro­ word 'iens'
scopes and telescopes, to spectacles for originates.
young and old.

Light 33
 Tricky Sunlight
During the day, sunlight looks golden.
However, as sunset approaches, the
light takes on orange and red hues. This
is because the rays become more
slanting and have to travel sideways through more layers
of air. As this happens, more and more of blue light, which
has a shorter wavelength is absorbed and only the colours
with longer wavelengths like orange and red are seen.

Why are lenses important in lighthouses?

A lighthouse is a tall, tower-like building

with a powerful signaling lantern at the top.
The beam of light from the lantern sweeps
across the sky at regular intervals in all direc­
tions, guiding ships at sea. The beam is
concentrated, and focused by special lenses,
so that it can travel a very long distance.
The first lighthouse optics, that was
designed by the French inventor Augustin
-Jean Fresnel, combined highly polished
prisms with an array of lenses that captured
light and funneled it back into a main beam.
This light could be seen for more than 32
kilometres.
Manyof today's lighthouses have a system
of rotating lenses, and the newer ones flash
off and on as a way of conserving energy.

A Lighthouse

Tell Me Why
 What are the additive primary colours of
light?

P rimary colours are those that cannot be

made from mixing other colours. Instead,
primary colours are the source of other
colours.
Additive primary colours are the primary
colour elements that make up white light.
They are different from the primary colours
that are mixed for painting. The additive
primary colours are red, green, and blue,
commonly called RGB. By additively mixing
the colours red, green, and blue in varying
amounts, almost all other colours can be
produced.
For example, when a green light and a red
light are shone together on a wall, the result
is a yellow light! In various combinations,
these three colours will also make almost
any other colour. However, when the three
primaries are added together in equal
amounts, white is produced.

Improving Vision
For almost 700 years, spectacles have
helped people with poor eyesight to
see better. Spectacles with convex
lenses help people with long sight, to
see nearby objects more clearly.
Concave lenses are used by people with short sight , so that
they can see far off objects more clearly.

light 35
 Why do colours in fabrics appear
different under fluorescent light?

I n our daily lives, we often

notice that the colour of clothing
Contact Lenses
as seen under fluorescent lights
A contact lens is a thin indoors looks different under
lens that is placed sunlight outdoors. Colours like red
directly on the eye to are much more pronounced in
improve vision. sunlight than under fluorescent
These lenses float on lights. Do you know why this is so?
a film of tears in front
Like sunlight, fluorescent light is
of the cornea and are
also white light, and it is also made
today made of plastic
or silicon. Like up of many different wavelengths.
spectacles, they are But the wavelengths in fluorescent
used to correct a light are different from those in
variety of vision sunlight. So, when these
problems including wavelengths are reflected to our
myopia and astig­ eyes, we get the feeling that there
matism. is something a bit different about
the colour of our clothes.

36 Tell Me Why
 \OUf ,. Achromatic Lenses
.....� -4t). An achromatic
. lens has two lenses made
4Y of different types of glass. One splits the
colours, and the other brings them
together again. The purpose of this lens,
invented in 1733 by Chester Moor Hall,
was to prevent colour separation.

Why Diamonds Glitter

Diamonds behave like prisms. When light
passes through a cut diamond, it is bent
into different wavelengths, and the
colours separate, and then are reflected
back out. Since a diamond's shape is
different from a prism's, the colours don't appear in
straight rows, but more like shards of colour as in a kalei­
doscope. As a diamond moves, the shards of colours
change like in a kaleidoscope, making the diamond glitter.

light 37
Why is the history of
This time,
telescope an interesting I w i ll win!
one?

In 1609, the Italian

scientist Galileo first
peered through his small
homemade telescope at
the stars. Since then,
telescopeshave increased
our knowledge of the
heavens by leaps and
bounds. straight through the telescope from
The first telescopes one lens to the other, to the image
used to peer into space you were looking at. However, the
were refracting lenses used in these telescopes were
telescopes. This means not the best, and the images were
that you would look blurry. It was soon discovered that if

Why is the history of microscope inter­

esting?

I t was the Romans who first

invented glass, and discovered that if
a piece of a certain type of glass that
was thick in the middle and thin on
the edges was held over an object, it
would make the object look larger.
This was the first primitive 'lens'.
The early lenses were called magni­
fiers or burning glasses. In the 13th

Microscope

38 Tell Me Why
the telescope lenses were
further apart, they would
show a clearer image, and
then telescopes began to
get really long.
In the 1 680s, Isaac
Newton designed a
successful reflecting
telescope. This type of
telescope had a mirror
inside that would reflect
the image to a focus point.
Newton found that this
made the images of space Nowadays, thereare manydifferent
much clearertotheviewer. types of telescopes. There are radio
Since that time, humans telescopes, x-ray telescopes, infrared
have raced to build bigger telescopes, gamma ray telescopes
and better telescopes. and ultraviolet telescopes.

century, spectacle makers Antonie Van Leeuwenhoek of

started producing lenses to be
worn as glasses.
Sometime about the . year
1590, two Dutch spectacle
makers, Zaccharias Janssen and
his father Hans invented the
compound microscope - which
is a microscope that uses two or
more lenses.
Galileo, the great Italian
scientist, improved the micro­
scope by adding a focusing
device to it.
Holland found that by grinding
and polishing, he was able to
make small lenses with great
curvatures. These rounder
lenses produced greater
magnification. His new
improved microscope was able
to see things that no man had
ever seen before, and he is often
called the 'Father of Micro­
scopy.' Robert Hooke, an
Englishman, also improved
microscopes.

light 39
 What are filters, and why are they
important?

A s well as adding colours to produce

new ones, colours can also be subtracted
from one another by using special filters
that only allow certain wavelengths of
light to pass through. For example, if you
Galileo's pass white light through a red filter, then
Telescope red light comes out through other side.
This is because the red filter only allows
Galileo's wavelengths of red light through. The
earliest other colours- or wavelengths- of the
telescope spectrum are blocked.
contained two
In our daily life, different types of
lenses-a
glasses can act as filters. They are known
convex lens,
and a smaller as photochromatic glasses, and they are
concave used most commonly in the sunglasses
eyepiece lens. that we wear.
Galileo used The ozone layer, high up in the atmos­
his telescopes phere, is a filter that blocks out
to look at the wavelengths of ultraviolet light that are
Moon, the harmful to us. A pigment called melanin
planets, and in our skin also acts as a filter against the
the stars. damage that too much sunlight can
cause.

Teli Me WbJ
 Hooke's Microscope
Robert Hooke made compound micro­
scopes containing two, or sometimes
three lenses. In 1665, he looked at a
sliver of cork through his microscope
and noticed some 'pores' or 'cells' in it.
He was the first person to use the word 'cell' to
describe the basic unit of life.

What are pigments? present in a living organism plays a very

crucial role in its daily life. The most
P igments are common pigment present in human and
substances that are animal's skin is known as melanin, which
responsible for gives protection from sunburn.
giving colour to an The earliest pigments used by people
object. We know that were those that occurred naturally, such
the primary colours as ochres and iron oxides which have been
of light are red, used as colorants. Today, synthetic
green, and blue. The pigments are widely available.
primary colours of
pigments are
Mom, I want
different- they are
more pigment.
red, blue, and
yellow. Secondary
colours are
produced by mixing
the primary colours.
Pigments are
found both in the
living world and in
manmadematerials,:.- _--....1
The natural pigmem:��!!!!

light
 Colourful
Communi­
cation
Hermann Von Ewald Hering
Helmholtz The octopus,
cuttlefish,
Why do we see colour? and squid
have special
R
enowned researchers, Thomas Young cells that are
filled with
and Hermann von Helmholtz, contributed
different
to the trichromatic or three colour theory
coloured
of colour vision. According to Young, we pigments.
see colour because of the actions of three The size of
different receptors. these cells
Helmholtz explained that all three types can be
of receptors reacted to all colours, but in controlled by
varying degrees, and that it was the total the brain. For
'sensation' received by the brain that example, by
determined the colours actually seen. making all the
Another theory was put forward by red cells
large, and all
Ewald Hering. He theorized that the retina's
the others
receptors are mere absorbers of light, and
small, the
that colour discrimination begins in the animals can
coding mechanisms located farther along produce a red
the optic system. Instead of colour being colour over its
comprised of three basic colours, he body, to
suggested humans perceive colour based signify that it
on six primary colours. This theory is widely is angry.
accepted today.

42 Tell Me Why
What is an optical illusion?

A n optical illusion is a way of tricking the

brain to see something that may not be there.
The human brain puts images together
because it has learned to expect certain
things-and sometimes, the data getsconfused.
For example, on a sunny, hot summer day,
when you happen to be on a long, straight
road, take a look at the surface of the road up
ahead of the car. It often appears that there are
pools of water on the road. What you are
actually seeing is an optical illusion called a
mirage.
The reason for this illusion is that under
certain conditions, usually on hot sunny days,
light beams bend when they hit the hot air
close to the ground. Instead of reaching the
ground, they bounce up toward your eyes.
What you see is a mirror image of something
on the ground, a reflection that looks like a
puddle.

light 43
How is a rainbow formed?

R ainbows appear magical, but there

is a simple explanation for their sudden
appearance and breathtaking beauty. Upsidedown
Simply saying, a rainbow occurs when Rainbows
sunlight is reflected and refracted by the
water droplets in the atmosphere. The Very rarely, we
lower the Sun is in the sky, the higher the can see an
arc of the rainbow will be. upside down
How is a rainbow made? Well, you rainbow. This
know that sunlight looks white, but it's is an unusual
phenomenon
really made up of different colours ...red,
caused by
orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and
sunlight
violet. When white sunlight passes shining
through rain drops, the raindrops act like through a thin,
tiny prisms. They bend the different visible screen
colours in white light, so the light spreads of tiny ice
out into a band of colours - red, orange, crystals high in
yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet - the sky.
the colours of a rainbow.

44 Tell Me Why
 Invisible Fish
The hatchet fish found only in the deep
sea, has sides that are covered with large
silver scales that act like mirrors, and two
rows of light-producing organs on its
underside. The effect is to make the fish
invisible to its enemies.

What are transparent and reflected in all directions, and

opaque substances? the light is said to be scattered.
The reflected light reaches our
W hen a beam of light hits an eyes, and allows us to see the
object, threethingscan happen. object. A shadow will be cast
It will either pass through it, be behind the opaque object,
reflected off it, or be absorbed where the light cannot reach.
by it. Transparent materials are
those that allow light to pass
through them. We can see
clearly through transparent
materials like water and glass.
Sometimes, however, the
surface of even a transparent
material such as glass can be
reflective, and light will bounce
off it. Some materials known as
translucent materials allow
light to come through, but we
cannot see through them.
Objects through which light
cannot pass are called opaque
objects. When a ray of light hits
an opaque object, it will be

Light 45
 18th Century Vermeil Mirror
Old Mirrors
The mirrors used What are mirrors?
by the ancient
Greeks and M irrors are surfaces that show you
Romans, were exactly what you place in front of
simply slightly them. They were originally made of
convex discs of polished metal, but nowadays, they
metal, bronze, are made of glass with a metallic or
tin, or silver, that silvery coating.
reflected light off When light rays hit a mirror, because
their highly
the surface is smooth and shiny, they
polished
surfaces. are reflected in the same direction, and
Mirrors of clear not scattered at all. As a result, you get a
glass first clear image that is an exact copy of the
appeared object. The image in a mirroris inverted­
around 1300 AD this means that the left side of your face
in Venice. They is the right side of the image.
were backed by a Most mirrors are flat, but there are
thin layer of convex mirrors and concave mirrors
shiny metal that too. Convex mirrors make the image
reflected light.
seem smaller, so that a larger area can
be seen. Concave mirrors, on the other
hand, make the image seem larger.

46 Tell Me Why
 Why are concave mirrors different
from convex mirrors?

A concave mirror has an inward

curved surface, like the inside of a
spoon. Because of its curved shape,
light rays are focused at a point in
front of the mirror's surface.
Depending on where an object is
placed,a concave reflecting surface
Image in a Convex Mirror can reduce and invert an image, or
enlarge an image. So, if you stand
in front of a concave mirror, you wi II
notice that thatthe reflected image
is reduced and inverted. If you
move closer, your image turns over,
and becomes enlarged. Concave
mirrors have many uses. These
include vanity mirrors that enlarge
a person's face, the mirrors used by
dentists, and those used in
reflecting telescopes.
A convex mirror has an outward
bulging reflecting surface. A
convex surface only reduces the
size of a reflected image- it does
not invert it, regardless of where
an object is placed in front of it. A
convex mirror allows a wider area
to be seen, and its many uses
include rearview mirrors in
automobiles, and mirrors in stores
Reflections in a Convex that are used for security
Mirror
purposes.

Light 47
 Why does a spoon appear bent when
placed in a glass of water?

P lace a spoon in an upright

position in a round glass of water.
Now, move it slowly from the
middle of the glass to the side. You
will see that the spoon appears to
get bent or broken. This illusion
occurs because of a phenomenon
called the refraction of light.
Refraction takes place when light
passes at an angle from one trans­
parent medium to another, for
example, from air to water.
Glass and Spoon with We know that light travels in a
View ofRefraction in Liquid
straight line, but when a ray of light
hits the water at an angle, its speed
changes. This causes a change in
direction. So, the light is bent- and
How's this ? then continues in a straight line.
Permanently
When the spoon is straight up in
bent!
the glass, it appears straight,
because when light hits the water
square on, it will pass straight
through, and will not be refracted
or bent. So, there is no distortion.
However, when we move the
spoon sideways, the light from the
spoon hits the water at an angle so
it is refracted or bent, and the part
of the spoon under water appears
in a different location. The result is
the illusion of a bent spoon.

48 Tell Me Why
 Objects in Water

An object that is seen in water is

actually a virtual image of the object.
Though the rays of light are bent as
they travel from water to air, our eyes
continue to follow the rays as though
they have travelled in a straight line. So what we see is not
the actual object, but its image.

Who discovered refradion?

T he Egyptian geographer Ptolemy who

lived between 90 and 1 68 AD tried to explai n
the phenomenon, but was not entirely
successful.
However, the actual law of refraction was .
discovered in the early 1 600s by a Dutch
mathematician Willebrord Snel Van Royen.
He explained that when light travels from
one medium to another, it generally bends,
or refracts. The bending is caused by the
Willebrord differences in density between the two
Snel Van Royen substances, which in turn affect the speed
at which light travels through them. Snel's
explanation of refraction is still known as
'Snell's Law.'

light
 What is diffraction?

D iffraction is the spreading

out of waves, such as those of
water, sound, radio, or light, as
t h ey pass around an obstacle,
or go through an opening. If
you screw your eyes up, and
look at a streetlight in the dark,
as your eyes close, the light
seems to spread out in strange
stripes as it squeezes through
the narrow gaps between your
eyelashes. The tighter you close
your eyes, the more the light
Peacock's Feathers spreads- this is because of the
diffraction of light.
The many colours The phenomenon of
of the peacock's diffraction was first recorded by
feather, which
usually include
shimmering greens Trying
and blues, are the to stop
result of a diffraction ..
phenomenon
called interference.
Interference is the
reflection of light
on each feather's
tiny, bowl-shaped
indentation, which
reflects the light
and causes the
colour to shimmer.

Tell Me Why
 Optical Diffraction Pattern ofLaser Thomas Young

an English physicist, Thomas will not turn corners, but they

Young, in 180 1. He noticed that
light rays spread out, or were
'diffracted', when they passed
through a very small slit. Light
waves may be diffracted only
under certain conditions. For
example, light waves ordinarily
will be diffracted when they
pass through tiny openings.
The diffraction pattern, the
pattern of dark and light
created when light bends
around an edge, shows that
light has wavelike properties.

Soap Bubbles

A soap bubble reflects a

spectrum of beautiful
colours when illuminated
by natural or artificial
light sources. This is because the light
is reflected from two surfaces- the
inner and the outer-of the bubble.

light 51
Why do rainbow-like colours appear when light Oil Spill on a
strikes oil that is floating on water? Road

W hen oil is poured on water, it spreads out to

form a very thin film on the surface of the water.
However, this film is of varying thickness. In some
places, it is literally a molecule thick, whilst in other
places, it is much thicker.
When light passes through the oil, some of it is
reflected back off the different layers of oil, whilst
some carries on, and is reflected off the surface of
the water lying below. Because the light waves
have now travelled different distances before
being reflected, they mix together, producing a
spectrum of colours. As a result, a rainbow-like
colour pattern is shown on the oil surface, and this
phenomenon is called thin-film interference.
The great scientist Thomas Young in 1801 put it
in a nutshell when he described thin film inter­
ference as the interaction of light waves reflected
from the top surface of a thin film, with those
which penetrate the film, and are reflected from
the back surface of the fiI m.

52 Tell Me Why
 Why do
soap bubbles shimmer?

D on't you love to watch and catch soap

bubbles as they float in the air? Whether they are
blown from a plastic pipe, or lathered between your
hands, the bubbles seem to shimmer with colours that
shift between blue, red, and purple as they encounter even
small amounts of light.
The reason they do so is because of the properties of light.
When light rays move from one transparent medium to another­
in this case, from airto the bubble- some rays go through, and some
rays bounce back, or are reflected. These light rays bend at the
point where air meets the bubble.
When light bends, it is called refraction- and refraction is what
causes soap bubbles to be coloured. The more the light ray
bend, the blue rays from the spectrum will become visible to
the human eye. Smaller bends make the red parts of the
spectrum visible. In effect, the surface of the bubbles
acts like a prism that separates the various light
rays into their individual wavelengths, and
these appear to us as shimmering
colours.
 What is polarization?

E veryone has experienced the

discomfort caused by glare in intense
sunlight. Very often, glare is caused by
sunlight reflecting off surfaces like
water, snow, or sand. Instead of
diffusing the light in many directions,
these surfaces absorb some of it, and
reflect the rest- especially light waves
Morning Sun in a that are horizontal.
Foggy Forest Scientists call this selective reflection
of horizontal light waves polarization.
When you wear sunglasses, their lenses
block out the annoying horizontal light
with a tinted plastic filter set with tiny
crystals that have been 'stretched' into
a series of lines, like the slats of a picket
fence. However, enough of vertical
light gets through the filter to let you
Coloured Shells see well, and even read.

The inside of He doesn't like

some shells have polarization .
thin layers of
hard mineral
called nacre.
Each layer
reflects light, and
the reflected rays
interfere with
each other to
create silvery
colours.

Tell Me Why

What is meant byTIR?
W e all know that a diamond
sparkles brightly. But do you
know why? To begin with, a
diamond is cut so that it has
many surfaces at different
angles to each other. It sparkles
because light bounces to and
fro off the inside of its many
surfaces, and produces the
flashes of light that we see. This
is an example of total internal
refiection, or TIR.
To understand TIR, we must
understand that when light
light
Total Internal Reflection at the
Air- Water Boundary
crosses a boundary between
two transparent substances, it
bends away from a line perpen­
dicular to the boundary. As the
angle of light hitting the
boundary becomes sharper,
the light bends farther and
farther. Finally, it reaches an
angle where the light is
reflected back inside the
material it is traveling through.
In other words, the light is
completely reflected inside the
substance, and not refracted.
The reflection is the total
internal reflection, or TIR.
55

Inside View
Doctors can now look inside
our bodies by using an
instrument called the
endoscope. An endoscope
typically employs two types of
optical fibres. A central bundle
of complex fibres transmits the
image from inside the body,
while an outer circle of simple
fibres projects enough light
inside the body cavity to make
the image visible. Sometimes,
a third set of fibres transmits a
laser beam, which can be used
to perform small-scale opera­
tions within organs or tissue.
How do fibre optic cables
work?
E bre optic cables are
bundles of extremely
pure glass threads that
have been coated in two
layers of reflective
plastic.
Light travels through
the glass strands and
continuously reflects off
of the inside of the
mirrored plastic coatings
in a process known as
total internal reflection.
The development of
flexible optical fi bres has
enabled light to be trans­
mitted over long
distances and appar­
ently around corners.
Optical fibres are ideal
for seeing into places
that are not easily acces­
sible. They are also used
to carry coded light
Tell MeWhy
Fiber Optic Cable Binoculars

signals over very long distances, a n d Binoculars have

so, a re i m portant t o t h e modern
two pairs of
prisms so that
teleco m m u nications industry.
light is sent back
Optical fibres a re rather l i ke the
and forth as it is
nerves in our body. Both are very t h i n
reflected four
and e a c h contain m a n y hundreds of
individ ual fibres bund led together.
Each nerve fibre is designed so that the
electrical signals they send to the bra i n
ca nnot escape or change a t a"- in t h e
sa me way that optical fibres do not
al low light to change or escape at a " .

Hooray...
Internet times. The prisms
connection. turn the image so
that it is the right
way round, and
also the right way
up. This makes it
possible for
binoculars to be
shorter than
telescopes.
Why are fluorescence
phosphorescence useful?
F luorescence is
property of a bsorbing l ight of
s h o rt wave l e ngth
e m itt i n g l i g ht of
wavelength. F l uorescence seen
in the redness of ru bies, i n
s u n l i g ht, in fl uorescent
ma rkers, and in 'Day-Glo' or
'neon' colou rs. There a re many
oth e r uses for fl uorescence
too. It is used in neon lig hts,
hig hway lig hts, TVs, computers,
microscopes, and paints.
There a re n u merous uses for
phosphorescence in daily life.
Apart from glow in the dark
toys, phosphorescence is used
for more sophisticated needs.
Many watches a re developed
with phosphorescent materials
on their hands so the user can
tel l the time in the dark.
Phosphorescent su bstances
a re used in pai nts, on electric
switch board s and sign boards.
Emergency routes, doors, and
sta i rways a re often ma rked with
these paints. These s u bstances
absorb s u nl ig ht during the day
time, and use the stored energy
to g l ow after da rk.
58
and
the the
and
longer
Why does the Sun look red at
sunset?
We have a l l enjoyed the
beauty of g lorious s u nsets,
when the Sun appears to be a
fiery red. Why is the S u n, which
is blazing white at noon, red at
s u nset? It is because s u n l ight
or what we ca l l 'white lig ht' is
made up of d ifferent colours,
each having a d ifferent
wavelength.
During a sunset, the su n's
rays are slanting, and they pass
throug h a m uch longer path in
the lower atmosphere. The
lower layers of the atmosphere
have many more of the tiny
particles cal led aerosols that
Tell Me Why
 Ancient
Fireworks
Fire was first
produced
by striking
together
are suspended even in the cleanest of air.
pieces of
Aerosols come from many sources l i ke soil, either flint
salt from the ocean, pla nts, the burning of or iron
fossil fuels or vegetation. pyrites.
As the lower layers ofthe atmosphere have These
more aerosols, their scatteri n g effect is minerals
mag n ified. This results in more red light give off
bein g scattered towards you than any of the sparks when
other colours . . . and in blazing s u nsets. they are hit
with
something
Tomorrow hard. Later,
I w i l l show you a flint and
blue Sun. iron pyrite
were both
-' . -
used to
ignite
gunpowder
in ancient
rifles.

light 59
 Why is the sky blue?

We know that s u n l i g ht or
white light is made up of
d ifferent colou rs, each having a
d ifferent wavelength. As the
l i g ht from our S u n s h i nes i nto
Fire Box the atmosphere, most of the
colours are able to reach the
When you strike a match Earth's surface u n i nterru pted.
against the matchbox, a However, the Earth's atmos­
chemical reaction phere is filled with tri l l ions of
produces a flame. Most
tiny d u st particles, that a re too
matches and match­
sma l l to be seen with the h u ma n
boxes have compounds
eye, and that a re the same
of phosphorous that
catch fire when being length as the wavelength of
exposed to air. In fact, blue lig ht.
early matches used to As a result, blue light is
catch fire without being scattered, and bounces in every
struck, but this was d i rection u ntil it eventually
dangerous. So, modern reaches you r eyes. For this
matchboxes use safety'
I
reason, no matter what
matches that light only d i rection you look i n the s ky, it
on being struck. appears to be blue.
Though human beings had
wondered for centu ries why
the sky is bl ue- and had tried to
come up with m a ny explana­
tions- the correct explanation
was first g iven by John Tyndall
in 1 859.

Tell Me Why
Why are black holes black?

B lack holes are one of the most

mysterious and powerfu l forces i n
t h e u n iverse. They are formed when
giant stars explode atthe end oftheir
I ifecycle. This explosion is cal led a
supernova. If the star has enough
mass, it will collapse on itself, down
to a very small size. Due to its s m a l l
size a n d enormous mass, its g ravity
wi l l be so strong that noth ing can
escape from it- even lig ht. I n stead,
a l l light is a bsorbed, and a black
hole is formed.
Black holes can g row Inside a Bulb
incred ibly huge as they
An ordinary bulb has a
continue to a bsorb l ig ht coiled filament made of a
and mass a round them. material known as
They can even a bsorb tungsten. The filament is
other stars. We can't surrounded by gases like
actua l ly see black holes argon at low pressure. When
because they don't reflect electricity is applied to the
lig ht, but scientists know bulb, it passes through
they exist by observing l ight the contacts, rods,
and objects a round black
and filament, and
electrical
holes. A simple way to put it is
that a black hole is a point in
space where something
exists, but because of its
extrem e g ravity, light cannot
esca pe from it, a nd so, it i s
not visible u nd e r a ny condi­
tions.

Light
 How is light born?

W hether light comes from the

Sun, fire, a lig ht b u l b, o r a firefly,
light is created by the action of
atoms. An atom consists of a heavy
nucleus containing neutrons and
protons, surrounded by a cloud of
electrons orbiting around the
nucleus.
The m i l l ion rupee If an electron is g iven extra
question is ... How
energy, it wi l l absorb the energy,
is l ight born?
become excited, and 'j u m p' to a
higher level. As it does so, it
gives off light energy in the
form of photons. Electrons
in d ifferent atoms g ive off
l ig ht energy in different
wavelengths that produce
d ifferent colou rs.

62 Tell Me Why
Why is the history of lamps used a carbon filament i nside
eledric lightfasdnating? a g lass bulb to produce i ncandescent
light. H owever, it was the i nventor
F or thousands of years, Thomas Alva Edison's l a m p that
people a l l over the world became the first commercia lly
have been fascinated by successful i ncandescent lamp. In
lightning. 1 91 0, William David Coolidge
In 1 752, a genius named invented a tungsten fila ment which
Benja m i n Franklin lasted even longer than the older

.
cond ucted a n experiment filaments. This i ncandescent b u l b
to prove that l ig htning revolutionized t h e world.
was caused by electricity.
.. I \
Throug hout the next ;. ' f • •
"
h u n d red years, many
. '\ 1.
inventors and scientists -
I,
j . ; : :,
tried to find a way to use �
t �
electrical power to make
light. ; . �. 1\" \
an
In 1 800, H u mphry Davy,
English scientist,
� '! �,
experimented with Joseph Swan Thomas Alva
Edison
electricity, and i nvented
an electric battery. When
he connected wires to his
battery and a piece of
carbon, the carbon
g lowed, prod ucing lig ht.
This is cal led an electric
arc.
Later, the English
physicist Sir Joseph
Wi lso n Swan demon-
strated his new electric Electric Lamps made by Swan (left) and
lamps in England. These Edison (right)

Light 63
 More l ight with
less energy is the
new policy. So you
� =an go out.

What are the different types of electric phosphor powder coated

lights? on the inside of the tu be,
to produce a visible blue­
Today, there a re many d ifferent white light.
types of electric lig hts. In i ncan­ Another type of l ig hting
descent lig ht, a bulb g l ows when is strip lig hting. I n this
electric c u rrent heats up a fi la ment case, an electric cu rrent
placed i nside a g lass bulb, to prod uce flows through a gas that is
a yel lowish-white lig ht. under low pressure. The
In fl uorescent lights, an electric gas gives off u ltraviolet
cu rrent is passed through mercury lig ht, and this strikes a
va pour inside a g lass tu be. The va pour phosphor coating,
g ives off UV lig ht that is a bsorbed by making it fl uorescent, so
that it produces lig ht. The
colour of the light
A CF Lamp
depends on the type of
gas that is used. Alterna­
tively, metal va pours can
be used instead of a gas.
For example, mercury
vapou r produces a blue
lig ht, while sod i u m
vapour glows yel l ow.
Sod i u m vapour lig hts a re
sometimes used in street
lighting.

Tell Me Why
Why is a camera similar to a the i ris, which is the coloured area of
human eye? the eye. The pu rpose of both the
sh utter a n d the pupil is to let i n l i g ht.
T he h u man eye is a The pupil can expand or contract to
wonderful instrument adjust the amount of l i g ht that
that rel ies on refraction enters- and a camera's sh utter can be
and lensestoform images­ adjusted too.
and a camera is similar to Next, we come to the cornea which
it in many ways. The is the 'cap' ofthe eye. It is transpa rent,
sh utter in a camera has sits at the front of the eye, a n d has a
the same function as the spherica l curvature. The lens of a
pupil of the human eye. camera is a lso transparent as it is
The pupil is the tiny made of g lass. It too is located i n the
opening at the centre of front of the camera, and has a

Swan's Lamp
Swan's lamp had a carbon filament inside
a glass bulb. When a current was passed
through the bulb, the filament glowed.
Swan's house in England was the first in
the world to be lit by a light bulb, and the world's first
electric-light illumination in a public building was for a
lecture Swan gave in 1880.

light 65
 Negative to Positive
William Fox Talbot was one
of those who pioneered the
technique of making photo­
graphs in the 1830s.He
soaked paper in a chemical
called silver chloride that
darkens when exposed to
light. When light fell on the
paper, it produced a
negative image of the object
before it. By using the same
process to copy the
negative, a positive print
was obtained.

spherica l c u rvature. The This camera

l enses of both the eye and a may help you.
camera can focus and
project a n upside down
image of a n object before
them.
I n a camera, fi l m is used to
capture a n image. I n the
eye, the i mage is focused
on the retina, which in turn,
converts the image to
electrical impulses and
sends the i nformation
along the optic nerve to the
bra i n .

66 Tell MeWhy
How do we get photographs?
A photog raphic fil m is an
encased rol l of cell uloid, a thin
plastic sheet. Both sides of this
cel l u loid a re treated with
special chemica l blends. One
side is coated with chem ical s
that aid the development of
fil m negatives, while the other
is coated with m ultiple layers of
chemicals that help to form the
images that eventua lly become
photogra phs.
The chemical coatings that
allow the creation of images on
fil m a re predominantly made
up of si lver halide crysta ls.
I want to be the
first person to see
my photograph.
Light
When the shutter of the camera
is pressed, light waves are
reflected off the objects i n front
of the lens, and these are
a bsorbed by the silver halide
particles on the surface of the
fil m . Then the fil m is developed,
and treated with a chem ical
sol ution to 'fix' the fi l m, so that
it is no longer sensitive to light.
What is now obta i ned is a
negative image of the o bject, i n
w h i c h the light a reas a re d ark,
and the dark areas a ppea r lig ht.
F i l m negatives have long shelf
l ives, and can be used m u ltiple
times to create original photo
prints.
 TV Camera

How do TV cameras work?

Camera Eye
Television is a way of sendi n g a n d
receiving moving images a n d sounds
The Copila is a over wi res, or through the air by
marine animal electrical impulses.
that has eyes In a TV camera, thousands of lig ht­
which work like sensitive detectors are a rranged in a
television g rid. Each detector is cal led a picture
cameras do. It has cell, or pixel. As light fa l l s on each pixel,
two lenses and a it produces an electrical signal. The
retina that scans signal from each pixel is sent down a
each image 10
cable in the form of a long coded
times for better
message.
picture quality.
At the same time, a m icrophone
records sounds that are occurring

68 Tell Me Why
during the scenes. A pixel can be made to glow. The pixels
vibrati ng magnet in the a re red, g reen and bl ue- the primary
microphone changes colours of lig ht. When the red, g reen
these sounds into and blue pixels g low together, our
electrical sig nals too. eyes see the colour white. Similarly,
When a programme is d ifferent colours are produced on
broadcast, the electrical the screen when d ifferent combina­
signals are tu rned i nto tions of pixels glow. The brig htness
invisi ble bands of energy of each pixel ca n be a ltered too,
ca l led rad i o waves that g iving a g reater range of colours and
are picked up by a shades.
television set. The
television set then
cha nges the waves back
into pictures and sounds.
Do you know how
colours a p pear on you rTV
screen? The television
screen is covered in rows
of tiny pixels. Each tiny

Praxinoscope
The praxinoscope was a
toy that converted still
pictures into moving
pictures. It consisted of a Praxinoscope
lamp surrounded by a ring
of still pictures showing an object in different stages of
movement. Each picture faced a mirror. By turning a
handle, the ring could be turned fast enough so that the
reflections in the mirror would merge, and it would look as
though the object was moving.

light 69
 Why is laser light spedal?

Lasers are a speci a l form of

light. Laser lig ht does not exist i n
nature.
Ordinary lig ht l i ke sunlig ht, is
made up of many d ifferent
The First Laser wavelengths, or colours, of light.
If you put a l l the d ifferent colours
The first working together, you get white lig ht.
laser was built in On the other hand, the l i g ht
1960 by Theodore from a laser contains exactly one
Maiman. Did you colour or wavelength rather than
know that the word
a lot of d ifferent wavelengths. So,
LASER stands for
laser lig ht is said to be 'monoch ro­
'Light Amplification
matic,' meaning of one colour.
by Stimulated
Emission of In laser light, a l l the h i g h points
Radiation/? or crests of the waves, and the low
poi nts or troughs are l i ned u p, so
that the waves move together, or
are said to be 'coherent.'
Moreover, while light waves
from ordinary sources such a s
l i g ht bu l bs, or t h e Sun spread out
in all d i rections, laser l iyht waves
a l l travel in the same direction,
exactly parallel to one a nother.
This means that laser light beams
are very narrow, and can be
concentrated on one tiny spot.
This property makes the laser
l ig ht 'coll i mated.'
The focused power makes laser
l i g ht useful for cutting and

Tell Me Why
�.
r
" ... .._".'f-.
--- --_ . _ ..
__.. .
_ ...... __.•

- - .� . �.­
..,.
----
�
welding. It also makes it Red, Green and Blue Lasers
possible to control laser
light very precisely, and is truly a wonderfu l t h i n g - a n d
make it do all kinds of o n ly h u ma n tech nology can
usefu l t h i n g s . Laser l i g h t create it!

Celluloid F ilm

In 1884, George
Eastman of the
United States
invented a
photographic
film made of celluloid. It was
strong but flexible enough to
be wound into a roll. Within a
decade, celluloid film was used
not just for still photography,
but to make movies as well.

light 71
 Glowing a n i m a ls
create l i g ht by m ixing
chemical compounds
in their bod ies to
produce lig ht.This
abil ity to prod uce light
is most common
among i n sects that fly
at nig ht, as they use
light to com m u n icate.
I n the depths of the
ocean, there is no
natura l l i g ht; so many
deep-sea fish produce
their own lig ht. The
angler fish and the
Angler Fish - An Illustration flashlight fish have
special light-prod ucing
What is bioluminescence? bacteria i n their bodies.
The angler fish has a
The bodies of some living orga nisms­ spine with a b u l b at the
l i ke fi refl ies and g lowworms- a re able to end that it d a n g l es in
g ive off visible l ig ht. This phenomenon front of its mouth.lt can
is known a s biolumi nescence. switch the g low o n and
off by increasing or
red ucing the flow of
blood to the bulb.
Amazing, isn't it?

�
PI�

72 Tell Me Why
 What is a hologram?

In a photograph, the image of the

o bject that you see on paper is a flat one.
Hologra m s are different. They give a
th ree-d i mensional image of an o bject
using the specia l light from a laser.
U n l i ke p hotography, which only
records the brig htness and contrast of
any o bject, a hologra m records
brightness, contrast, and depth.
The first hologra m was produced in
1 948 by Dr. Dennis Gabor, a researcher
Dr. Dennis Gabor
at the I m perial College of London.
Gabor's early holograms were created
without the use of laser, since laser
wasn't i nvented until 1 960. Therefore,
his holograms were only capable of
showing the slightest amount of d epth­
a bout the thickness of a postage stamp.
With the invention ofthe laser i n 1 960,
researchers fi nally had the proper type
of l ight to beg i n recording an o bject
d i mensional ly. These early holograms
req u i red laser to both record, and view
the i mage. It wasn't long, however,
before new techniques a l lowed the
holog ram, although sti l l requ i ring a
laser to record, to be viewed with
ordinary l i g ht.
The expensive lasers of the past have
been replaced by the inexpensive laser
pointers oftoday, which makes creating
a hologra m q u ite easy.

light 73
 What are the advantages of LEDs?

L ght Emitting Diodes or LEOs

are basica lly j u st tiny l i g ht b u l bs
that fit easily i nto an electric circ uit.
However, they don't have a fi lament
that will bu rn, and get hot while
prod ucing light.
A d iode is an electrical component
with two terminals which con d u ct
electricity only in one d i rection.
Con necting a diode to an electrical
c u rrent excites the electrons with in
the diode, making them release
photons, which we see as lig ht.
In the search for energy-efficient
l ig hting, LEOs have proven to be
the most efficient b u l bs avai l able.
LED Spot Light LEOs use at least 75 percent less
energy than traditional i ncan­
descent b u l bs, and last 25 times
longer.
LEOs don't require, or emit g reat
LED Bulbs amounts of heat.

74 Tell Me Why
 LCD TV What are liquid crystal displays?
------

A liquid crystal display, or LCD is an

electronic d isplay device that operates by
applying a varying electric voltage to liquid
crystals.
Liqu i d crystal s a re su bsta nces that have
properties between a liquid a n d a solid. To
g ive an exam ple, a crystal may flow l i ke a
liq uid, but the molecules may be crysta l-l i ke.
Liquid crystals a re interesting beca use they
don't exactly fa l l u nder the three main states
of matter-solid, liquid, or gas.
Liqu i d crysta ls do not emit light d i rectly, but
have light mod u lating properties that have
many applications in today's world . LCD
consists of an a rray of tiny segments cal led
pixels that can be manipu lated to present
information. Leos are commonly used in
video projection systems, as mon itors for
computers, a n d i n flat-pa nel televisions.

light 75
 reaches the Earth as light and heat?
The Sun acts like a massive n u clear
plant radiating energy i nto space,
but most of this energy is either
reflected back by the atmosphere
into space or absorbed by the
atmosphere, the land and ocea ns.
Energy from the Sun is cal led solar
How does the Sun's energy energy.
reach us? Solar energy travels from the S u n
t o t h e Earth in rays. Some a re light
D id you know that only rays that we can see, while some a re
a small portion ofthe S u n's rays we can't see, l i ke x-rays. The
energy- j u st one S u n's rays are able to reach the Earth
thousandth of one by travelling through space, since
m i l l ionth part- actua lly light is able to travel through space

76 Tell Me Why
 Cutting
Lights
Long wave
laser light is a
very effective
cutting tool.
The beam can
be directed to
a surface so
as well as through the a i r. The energy as to produce
absorbed by the Earth becomes thermal intense heat
energy, which warms the Earth, and the air in a small
a round it.
area. This
heat can cut
A sma l l portion of the energy that
through even
reaches us is trapped by g reen pla nts to
steel. Laser
make ' food. Pla nts act as e nergy trans­ light never
formers, ca ptu ring the l i g ht that fa l l s on becomes
them first i nto chemical energy and then blunt like
into the energy that makes them g row, by ordinary
a process known as photosynthesis. metal cutting
Plants a re then eaten by a n i m a ls and by tools, which
us, either d i rectly or indirectly through the is a very great
animals that we eat. Even thoug h such a advantage
m i n ute part of the Sun's e nergy reaches indeed.
us, it is stil l far more than we use.

Light 77
Why is the discovery of the photoelectric
effect a milestone in physics?

W hen X-rays, gamma rays, or certai n

other wavelengths o f light a re s h i ned
on certa i n kinds of matter, electrons are
ejected. This phenomenon is known as
the photoelectric effect.
The photoelectric effect was
d iscovered by Germ a n physicist
Heinrich Hertz in 1887, and the
phenomenon was i nvestigated further
in 1902 by the German physicist P h i l ipp
Lenard. H e showed that, for a g iven
wavelength of lig ht, the electrons had a
fixed a mount of energy. Weak l ig ht
produced fewer electrons, but each
electron sti l l had just and m uch e nergy
as ifthe light had been brig ht. H owever,
there was a l i n k between wavelength
and energy. The shorter the wavelength
of light, the more energy the light had.
Later, A l bert Ei nstein explained the
mecha nism of photoelectric effect, and
he awarded the Nobel Prize i n Physics
for the same, i n 1921.
When a photon of a certai n
wavelength, and e n o u g h energy, fa l l s
on t h e su rface of some metal, it will
knock out electrons from the atom. If
the photon energy is too low, the
electron is unable to escape from the
s u rface. The energy of Light
the em itted electrons Pressure
does not depend on the
Light is
intensity of the
made u p of
incoming lig ht, but only particles
on the energy or that exert
frequency of the pressure which is so little as
i ncoming l i g ht. to be insignificant. Sir
The photoelectric William Crookes, a scientist
effect is i m portant in proved this with a device
history because it known as a radiometer. In
caused scientists to this device, light was used to
think a bout lig ht and turn a set of finely balanced
other forms of electro­
vanes, but when all the air
was removed from the
mag netic radiation in a
device, the vanes stopped
d ifferent way.
moving. This showed that
the pressure of light alone
could not move the vanes.

Light 79
 Electrochromic
Why are solar panels useful? Glasses

We know that solar energy is

A new type of
glass, called
obtai ned from s u n l i g ht, and solar electrochromic
panels are large panels desig ned to tra p glass, is covered
s u n l i g ht. The panels are positioned to by a thin
face the Sun, usually on south facing coating of a
walls a n d roofs, and they convert light special material
energy i nto electricity. which can be
A large n u m ber of solar panels that turned blue by
a re con nected together can prod uce passing
e lectricity on a commercial sca le. In
electricity
through it. It is
some solar plants, concentric rings of
used in car
mi rrors reflect the sunlight to a central
rearview
boiler where water is heated and t u rned
mirrors to
i nto stea m . The steam then powers reduce
tu rbines that a re used to generate headlight glare
electricity. at night. It can
Solar panels can be used for water also be used in
heating, space heating, space cool i ng, windows to
and to process heat generation. Did you control the
know that the sunlig ht that sh ines on amount of light
the Earth in j ust one hour could meet let into a room.
the world's energy demands for an
e DevNat
entire year?

80 Tell Me Why
 What is the role played by light sensors in
living things?

All l iving organisms contain

biological sensors that can detect light.
This is why plant shoots will natura l ly
g row towards a l ight sou rce, and this
response to light is called photot­
ropism.
Plants need lightforthe process cal led
photosynthesis, by which they prepare
their food. Light a lso plays an i m portant
role in the floweri ng of plants. The
open ing a n d closing of some flowers'
peta l s is also controlled by s u n l i g ht, and
this kind of response to sunlight is called
photonasty.
Some animals can respond to light in
their s u rround ings, and the main trigger
for these colour changes is l ig ht. Light is
also u sed as a cue for the timing of daily
a n d seasonal rhythms in both plants
and a n imals.

Solar Cells
Solar or photo­
voltaic cells convert
solar energy into
electricity. Solar
cells are used for
different purposes.

light 81
 and shorter. Spring, when the
hours of daylight start increasing
after a long wi nter, is a time for
courtship for many birds and
a n i mals. Similarly, hens need a
certain amount of daylight in order
to maintai n peak egg-layi ng. Even
a n hour or two less of dayl ight
cha nges egg-layi n g patterns. It is
bel ieved that a n i m a l s ca n sense
cha nges in the qual ity of lig ht, and
its d u ration with a part ofthe brain
How are different animals cal led the pineal gland.
affected by sunlight? A reptile fou n d only i n New
Zea land, the tuatara has a third
Every l iving organism eye, cal led pineal eye, located on
depends on s u n l ig ht for its top ofits head that is l i g ht- sensitive
survival, in one form or the and controls the behaviou r of the
other. All of us benefit from animal.
the Su n's effect on our
bodies, because sunlight on
skin produces vita min D,
which is i m portant in the
formation of strong bones.
S u n l ight a lso affects the
behaviour of animals in
different ways. Mig ratory
birds know that it is time to
fly to warmer places when
the hours of dayl ight
become shorter.
Some mammals a lso know
that it is time to hibernate as Tuatara
the days become shorter

82 Tell Me Why
 What do you know about elertro­
magnetism?

In the 1 9th century, European

scientists d i scovered that electricity
a lways makes mag netism when it
moves a bout, or cha nges.
Natural Clocks Every time an electric current flows
i n a wi re, it generates a mag netic
Some flowers will
field a l l around it. Changing electric
open and close their
field, in short, produces magnetism.
petals at a particular
time every day ­ The reverse is true as wel l- you can
almost as though m a ke electricity using a changing
they have built- in mag netic field.
clocks! Bats and The first person to explain this
insects have was a Scottish physicist named
realized this and will James Clerk Maxwe l l . H i s theory
come to suck honey s u m med all that was then known
from the flowers at a bout e lectricity and mag netism i n
that time. fou r relatively simple mathematical
formulas. Maxwell's equations, as
we now call them, combi ned
e lectricity and mag netism into a
sing le, powerfu l theory we call
electromag netism.
Maxwell a lso concluded that light
itself was a form of electromag netic
wave. We now know that e lectro­
mag netism is one of the four
fu ndamental forces that control
everything that happens i n our

Statue of Maxwell

83
 Glowing Iron Rod Why do things glow when
they are very hot?

A l l that
gl itters is not W hen an i ron ba r is
gol d , but now, a l l heated to a very high
things can glow. temperature, it i nit ially
g lows red, a n d then a s its
temperature rises, it glo ws
white. This process is ca l led
inca ndescence. I nca ndes­
cence is heat made visi ble
when heat energy tu rns
i nto l ig ht energy. Why d oes
this happen?

RADAR
\O Uf �
�� oo;f(' The word RADAR is the short form of the
'-i ....
term Radio Detection and Ranging. A
radar scanner emits very short radio
waves .Objects in the path of these
waves send back echoes that are picked
up by the scanner.

84 Tell Me Why
 Everything around us
g ives off both heat and
waves of l ig ht called
infrared light, which we
can not see. Even things
that we think of as bei n g
very cold, l i ke a n ice cube,
g ives out some heat. As a n X�Rays
�---

o bject becomes wa rmer,

X-Rays are waves of light
its atom s emit much more
we cannot see, but which
wave energy, and the
carry more energy than
waves it produces become visible light. They can
shorter and shorter. If it is pass through the soft
warmed enough, the parts of our body, but not
shorter waves wil l g ive off through bone. X-Rays are
visible l ight as the object used to show doctors
starts to g l ow. what is going on inside
When an object heats your body, like whether
u p, first it glows red, a n d you have fractured a
then wh ite when it
bone or not.
Sneha Rao
becomes rea l ly, rea l ly hot.
To put it in a n utshel l,
everything glows, not j ust
hot objects.
Most things glow in the
i nfrared frequencies,
which h u ma n eyes can't
see. When an object gets
hot enough, it g l ows in
the visible l i g ht
frequencies, which we
c a n see, a n d then we say
that it is 'red- hot' or
'wh ite-hot'!

Light 85
 hy is UV light hannful to us?

U ltraviolet or UV light has a shorter

wavelength than visible lig ht, so we can not
see it.
U ltraviolet radiation possess h igher
energy than visible lig ht, and are respon­
s i ble for causing our sunburns. UV light can
cause some type of skin cancers also. UV
(osmic Rays
light can be reflected strongly from the
Cosmic rays s u rface of water, and from w hite surfaces
are highly suchas snow,and ca n ca usesnow-bl indness.
energetic It is a lways better to wear protective gogg les
particles or sung lasses that filter out the UV l i g ht to
that prevent serious eye damage.
originate in
Though some UV rays from the Sun
outer space.
penetrate Earth's atmosphere, most of them
They are
born from are blocked from entering by various gases
clouds of l i ke ozone. However, increasing damage
gas done to the ozone layer in the Earth's u pper
surrounding atmosphere means that more and more UV
the ancient light is now reaching the surface of the
and massive Earth. This is dangerous to us.
explosions
of distant
stars, and
they slam
the Earth's
upper
atmosphere
at very high
speeds.

UV Light

86
How do plants use UV
light?

Some i n sects l i ke bees

see a very d ifferent
spectrum of colou rs from
what we see, and they
ca n see UV l ight. Bees
play a very important
role in nature, for they
tran sfer pollen from one
flower to another. These
flowers are brightly a colour that bees ca n't see. This is
coloured to attract where UV light plays a role. The red
i nsects l i ke bees. Some flowers reflect UV lig ht- which is a
of them are a bright red, colour that is visible to the bee. The
bee is then attracted to the red flower,
a n d flies to it to d ri n k its nectar- and i n
Not a t h e process, get some pollen on its
spacesuit, it's a body that wil l be tra nsferred to
UV protection a nother flower.
suit. When some materials a re lit by UV
lig ht, they emit a fl uorescent g l ow.
Some such chem ica l s a re used in
l a u n d ry detergents as wh iteners. They
bind to the natural fibres in clothes,
and make them look brig hter i n
s u n l ig ht. U ltra violet light is u sed to
ki l l bacteria, hasten chemica l
reactions, and to identify some
fluorescent mi nerals. UV l i g ht can also
be u sed to show things the h u man
eye can't see, which makes it very
useful for forensic scientists.

light 87
 Why is infrared light useful to us?

Slightly more than h a lf of the

energy from the Sun a rrives on Earth
in the form of infrared rad iation, and
nearly everything a round us g ives off
some form of infrared lig ht. I nfrared
l ig ht has a wavelength that is a l ittle
longer than that of the red light than
we can see, and it is not visible to
human eyes. However, many animals
l i ke the piranha fish that live i n the
Light and Gravity m u rky waters of the Amazon River,
have the ability to d etect infra red
Albert Einstein also l i g ht.Somei nsectstoo have a ntennae
put forward the that can detect infrared light, and this
idea that light can
lets them see in the dark.
be bent both by
Today, research scientists a re
refraction, and by
gravity. Light developing devices using infrared
ordinarily travels light that have many uses, both for
on a straight line the m i l ita ry, and in everyday life.
path but it will N i g ht-vision devices using active
follow a curved near-infrared i l l u m i nation a l low
path if it passes
through a strong
gravitational field.
This is called
'curved space,' and
this explains why
light becomes
trapped in a black
hole.
Radha Nair
Infra Red Light

88 Tell Me Why
 Piranha Fishes

people or animals to be observed Gamma Rays

without the observer being seen.
Gamma rays have
Infrared l ig ht is used i n i n du stria l,
very short
scientific, and medical a ppl ications.
wavelengths. They
So, though infrared l ight or 'IR' is just carry very large
out of ra nge of what the h u m a n eye amounts of energy,
can d etect, we can stil l use i nfrared and can penetrate
l i g ht to see things! even metal and
concrete. High
levels of these rays
are very
dangerous, and can
kill living cells.
Because gamma
rays can kill living
cells, they are used
to kill cancer cells
without having to
resort to difficult
surgery. Gamma
waves are
generated by
radioactive atoms
and in nuclear
explosions.
 nothing can move
faster than light in a
vacu um, and that the
speed of l i g ht i n a
vacuu m is always the
same. His work
revol ution ized the
way scientists viewed
the world, and had a
tremendous i m pact
in the field of physics­
especially in studies
Einstein on hisfirst US visit.
on l ig ht.

Why is the Theory of Relativity related to What are photo-

light? chemical reactions?

I n March 1905, Al bert Einstein, one of A ny reaction that

the g reatest scientific minds of a l l time, takes place only in
expla ined the Quantum Theory of Light. the presence of light
Accord ing to this theory, l i g ht exists as is known as a photo­
tiny packets, or particles, which he cal led chemical reaction.
photons. Along with another scientist, The light may be
Max Planck, Einstein proposed one of the visible lig ht, infrared
most revol utionary idea s i n twentieth radiation, or u ltra­
century physics- that we l ive in a u niverse violet rad iation.
b u i lt out of tiny, d iscrete c h u n ks of energy Many photochemical
and matter. reactions ta ke place
Later, in 1905, he pu blished his Theory in nat u re, and the
of Special Relativity. In this theory, he best example is
extended Galileo's principle of relativity, photosynthesis. In
so that, it accou nted for the constant photosynth e s i s,
speed of light. Einstein saw light a s both a g reen p lants make
wave and a particle. He showed that food using s u n l i g ht

90 Tell Me Why
to combine carbon dioxide and water.
Therefore, plants convert light energy i nto the
chemical energy of food. P hotochemical
changes a re a lso part of industrial processes,
such as the formation of images in photog­
raphy. When a picture is taken, some of the
si lver salts on the photogra p h i c fi l m a bsorb
l ig ht, a n d chemica l ly change i nto metallic
si lver, which produces a dark image on the
negative when the fil m is developed.
We know that light is made of photons
trave l l i n g at d ifferent wavelengths which
make u p d ifferent colours of the spectrum.
But not all wavelengths wil l trigger a specific
photochemical reaction. For example, a
photon of violet l i g ht has highest
frequency, and hence, the hig hest
energy. Hence, a reaction which is
initiated by violet l i g ht may not be
i nitiated by red, blue, or other
wavelengths of lig ht. Another inter­
esti ng fact is that some su bstances
do not react directly when exposed
to light, but the a d d ition of a nother
substance will trigger a photo­
c hem ical reactio n .
 How is digital photography different from
film photography?

In a fi l m camera, points of light are

detected, and each point is recorded by a
g ra i n of chemica l material on a fil m that is
lig ht-sensitive. The fil m can be processed
in a l a b, a n d t urned into negatives, prints,
or tran sparencies. The resulting image
can be put in a book, fra med and put o n
you r desk, or j u st kept in a box.
In a digital camera, there is no fi l m .
Poi nts o f l i g ht ca l led pixels a re detected
using an a rray of l ig ht-sensors known a s
photo-detectors. Each point represents
colour a n d i ntensity. The collection of
pixels forms an i mage that is saved to
some kind of electronic medi a l ike a flash

Why arecompadfluorescent bulbs different

from incandescent bulbs?

I ncandescent bulbs are the standard

type of bu l bs that were most common till
some years back. I ncandescent l ight bulbs
are made of g lass, and are rou n d in shape .
They work by heating a tungsten filament, .
orwire, u ntil it glows. This is what produces
the l ight that you see. Unfortunately, 90%
of the energy used to generate that l ight is
wasted as heat, making inca ndescent bulbs
a very inefficient way to l ight your home.
I n stead of a g lowing fi lament, CFLs

92 Tell Me Why
card, mag netic disc, or optica l d isc. The resulting file Digital
can be read by imaging software on a compute r , Camera
and the image can then be printed .
To s u m u p, film cameras use rolls of fi lm that have
to be developed. Digital cameras use memory to store
the images, and can be uploaded to you r computer
or ipod, so that you ca n see the picture d i rectly.

contain argon and mercury tests, they bu rned brightly for

va pour housed within a tube
cu rved in d ifferent
When a n electric cu rrent passes
through the mixture, the gas
1 0,000 hours, whereas sta ndard
s hapes. bulbs bu rned for j ust 800 to
1 ,500 hours. C F Ls use signifi­
cantly less energy 75 percent
-

gets excited, and it produces less energy tha n i ncandescent

u ltraviolet light. The u ltraviolet light bulbs. Th is means that by
lig ht, in turn, stimulates a using CFLs, you are not only
fl uorescent coating pai nted on saving electricity, but a lso
the i n side of the tube. As this helping the environment by
coati n g a bsorbs energy, itemits red ucing energy consumption
visible light. and preventing g reen house
CFLs last a longer time than gas emissions that contri bute
i ncandescent bulbs. I n some to gl obal cli mate change.

Light 93
 What is sunburn ?

I f you stay out in the S u n for too long,

your skin may become red or da rk, and
even become painful and swollen. This is
known as s u n b u rn, and other symptoms
may include fever, chil ls, na usea and
vomiting, weakness and symptoms of
shock.
. Why does this happen? The reason is
that s u n li g ht has u ltraviolet rays, and
over- exposure to u ltraviolet rays is
ha rmfu l to both our skin and our eyes. As
you near the tropics, the S u n 's rays a re
more i ntense and more d irect, so the risk
of s u n burn increases- and so does its
severity. So, it is always better to wear a

94 Tell Me Why
 Winners ofthe GK Contest -3,
Freedom Fighters- held in the August issue

Raman Effect ofTell Me Why.

The great Indian 1 . Anjali Pakde

scientist 1 3,Ganesh Nagar,
Sir C.V. Raman put Nandewar Road, Bharuch, Gujarat .
forward a new 2. Saumay Shikher Raj
theory on the Uo Sri Hardeo Prasad,
scattering of light,
Menka Bhawan; Bampass town, B.
for which he won
Deoghar, Jharkhand.
the Nobel Prize in
Physics in 1930. 3. Varad Kumar
His theory, known 415, Gaur Galaxy, Sector-5 ,Plot-5,
as the Raman Vaishali, Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh.
Effect, states that 4. Ananya
the wavelength of Uo Prabhash Kumar, Naka No.5
light changes Darbhanga, Bihar.
after passing 5. KanishakarY.
through a 1 7/1 , 1 2 ' Avenue, Ashok Nagar
medium, and Chennai, Tamil Nadu.
being deflected
by the particles of
that medium. GK Contest -3, Freedom F ighters
ANSWERS

hat, or hold an um brella 1. Dadabhai Naoroji

and slather yourself with 2. Bhagat Singh
sunscreen lotion when 3 . Captain Lakshmi
going out d u ring the 4. Chandrasekhar Azad
hottest part of the day.

Light 95
 Here's a contest in which our readers
have to identify five SCIENTISTS, from the
pictures given here.

All you need to do is send us an email

naming each person with the proper number.
(PLEASE GIVE YOUR POSTAL ADDRESS ALSO IN THE
EMAIL)
You are also welcome to send your answer by

P OlO post.

Five winners will be awarded prizes.

QUIZ In case there are more than five correct

entries, the winners will be chosen by lot.

Last Date to receive entries:

October 25th
If you are sending your entry by post,
superscribe this on your envelope.

M.M. Publications Ltd.,

P.B. No. 226, Kottayam, Kerala, INDIA.
Pin - 686 001 .
 Question of the Month

Why does an electric bulb make a

I ionder bang when it is broken?

Have you ever noticed the brea ki ng
of a n electric bulb and the consequent

IhV�
bang? Th is sound is produced by the
air surrounding the b u l b.
The i nside of an electric bulb is
vacu u m . So, the pressure i nside is lower
than that of the outer atmosphere.
When the bulb is broken, a i r rushes in
at h i g h speed from a l l sides to fil l up the
vacuum. The sudden surge of air
produces a bang.
An electric bulb produces light when
its fi la ment is heated at a high tem per­
ature. The vacuum i nside the bulb
prevents the fi lament from oxid izing
Send us your questions with a i r.
E mail: childrensdivision@mmp.in • Alwin George

MANORAMA TELL ME WHY - LIGHT

Editor: Ammu Mathew Editor-in-(harge: A.V. Harisanker *
Printed and Published by V. Sajeev George, on behalf of M.M. Publications Ltd, P.O. No. 226, Kottayam - 686001
at M.M. Publications Ltd, P.O. No. 226, Kottayam - 686 001 and Malayala Manorama Press, Kottayam · 686 039
and published from M.M. Publications Ltd, P.O. No. 226, Kottayam - 686001.

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