Light and Optics

Part One: Color and

Energy

Light = straight path

An atom:
emits light when an electron moves from
a high to a low energy level.

absorbs energy as its electrons

move from a low to a high energy
level.

Learning Goals
Describe the properties of light.
Explain the relationship
between energy and the colors
of light.
Describe waves included in the
electromagnetic spectrum in
terms of energy, frequency, and
wavelength.

LIGHT

 The fluorescent bulb uses highvoltage electricity to energize

atoms of gas. These atoms give off
UV which is absorbed by atoms in
the white coating inside the bulb

Color and energy

When all the colors of the
rainbow are combined, we see
light without any color.
We call the combination of all
colors white light.

Color and energy

The light from a gas flame is blue
(high energy) and the light from a
match is red-orange (low energy).

The speed of light

The speed at which light travels through
air is about 300 million meters per
second. 3x108 m/s
The speed of light is so important in
physics that it is given its own symbol, a
lower case c.

Speed of light
The speed at which electromagnetic
waves travel through air is about 300
million meters per second.

The speed of light is so

fast that when lightning
strikes a few miles away,
we hear the thunder after
we see the lightning. (5
sec. per mi.)

Wavelength and
Frequency of
Light

wavelength is so small,
scientists measure it in
nanometers.
One nanometer (nm) is
one billionth of a meter
(0.000000001 m).

What kind of wave is light?

A sound wave is a oscillation of air.
A water wave is an oscillation of
the surface of water.
An oscillation of electricity or
magnetism creates
electromagnetic waves.

The electromagnetic
spectrum

Light, like sound and heat, is a form

of energy.
The visible light we see is part of
the electromagnetic spectrum.

Electromagnetic waves
If you could shake
the magnet up and
down 450 trillion
times per second,
you would make
waves of red light
with a frequency of
about 450 THz.

The entire range of electromagnetic waves

Light and Optics

Part Two: Color and Vision

Learning Goals
Explain how humans see.
Demonstrate knowledge of the
additive and subtractive color
processes.
Apply knowledge of the
behavior of light to explain why
plants have certain colors.

The human eye

sensory organ used
for vision.
The retina contains
light-sensitive cells
called
photoreceptors.
Photoreceptors
convert light into
nerve impulses that
travel through the
optic nerve to the
visual cortex of the

Photoreceptors
The human eye has
two types of
photoreceptors
cones and rods.
Cones respond to
color
Rods respond to the
intensity of
lightsee black,
white, and shades of

How we see color

Our eyes work
according to an
additive color
process 3
photoreceptors
(red, green, and
blue) in the eye
operate together
so that we see
millions of different
colors.

Making an RGB color image

A television makes
different colors by
lighting red, green,
and blue pixels in
different proportions.
Color images in TVs
and computers are
based on the RGB color
model.

Making an RGB color image

Like the rods and cones in your retina,
a video camcorder has tiny light
sensors on a small chip called a CCD.
There are three sensors for each pixel
of the recorded image: red, green, and
blue.

How objects appear to be

different colors
Your eye creates a
sense of color by
responding to red,
green, and blue
light.
You dont see
objects in their own
light, you see them
in reflected light!

Subtractive color process

A blue shirt looks
blue because it
reflects blue light
into your eyes.
Chemicals known
as pigments in the
dyes and paints
absorb some colors
and reflect other
colors.

The CMYK color process

The subtractive
color process is
often called
CMYK for the
four pigments it
uses.
CMYK stands for
cyan, magenta,
yellow, and

Why plants are green

Plants absorb
energy from
light and
convert it to
chemical energy
in process
called
Chlorophyll is the main
pigment of
photosynthesis.
plants absorbs red and blue light and
reflects green light.

Why plants are green

Plants must
reflect some
light to avoid
absorbing too
much energy.
A plant will die
if placed under
only green
light!

Light and Optics

Part Three: Optics and

Reflection

Learning Goals
Explain how basic optical
devices function.
Compare and contrast the
interactions of light and
matter.
Distinguish between concave
and convex lenses.
State the law of reflection.

Optics is the study of life

Optics is the study
of how light
behaves.
As light moves
through a material
such as air, the light
normally travels in
straight lines.
A light ray is an
imaginary line that
represents a thin
beam of light.

Bending light rays

Light does not
always go straight
from an object to
your eyes.
The curved surface
of a magnifying
glass bends light
rays so they
appear to come

Basic optical devices

Three useful optical devices
are:
1. lenses
2. mirrors
3. prisms

Basic optical devices

A magnifying glass
is a converging
lens (convex lens)
that can be used
in survival
situations to make
a hot spot.
Mirrors can attract
the attention of
rescue teams from
great distances.

Optical devices
A diverging lens (or concave lens)
bends light so it spreads light
apart instead of coming together.
An object viewed through a
diverging lens appears smaller
than without the lens.

Four ways light is affected

by matter
All four interactions
almost always happen
together.
Green colored paper
absorbs some light,
reflects some light,
and is partly
translucent.

Can you tell which

colors are reflected and
which are absorbed?

Reflection
Reflection occurs when light bounces off
a surface and when light bends while
crossing through materials.

Reflection
There are two types of reflection; but
not all reflections form images.
Rays light that strikes a shiny surface
(like a mirror) create single reflected
rays.
This type of reflection is called specular
reflection.

Reflection
A surface that is dull or uneven
creates diffuse reflection.
When you look at a diffuse reflecting
surface you see the surface itself.

Ray diagrams
A ray diagram is an
accurately drawn
sketch showing
how light rays
interact with
mirrors, lenses,
and other optical
devices.

Light and Optics

Part Four: Refraction

Learning Goals
Use the index of refraction to
determine how much light
rays bend.
Describe total internal
reflection and its
applications.
Explain the role of refraction
in prism and rainbows.

Refraction
Materials with a higher index of
refraction bend light by a large angle.
The index of refraction for air is about
1.00.
Water has an index of refraction of
1.33.

Angle of refraction
The angle of refraction is the
angle between the refracted ray
and the normal line.

Refraction
Vegetable oil and
glass have almost the
same index of
refraction.
If you put a glass rod
into a glass cup
containing vegetable
oil, the rod disappears
because light is NOT
refracted!

Total internal reflection

As the angle of incidence increases,
there is a point at which the light will
not enter the air but reflect back into
the water!
This effect is called total internal
reflection.
AIR
WATER

Fiber optics
If glass rods are
made very thin, they
are flexible, but still
trap light by total
internal reflection.
Fiber optics are thin
glass fibers that use
total internal
reflection to carry
light, even around
bends and corners.

Refraction and colors of light

A glass prism splits
white light into its
spectrum of colors
because each color
is bent slightly
differently.
The order of colors
in the visible light
spectrum is red,
orange, yellow,
green, blue, violet
(or ROY-G-BV).

Dispersion
The rainbow you see
when light passes through
a prism and a real rainbow
in the sky are examples of
dispersion.
Rainbows in the sky occur
when white light from the
sun passes through water
droplets in the
atmosphere.
Like a prism, each drop
splits white light into the
spectrum of colors.

Light and Optics

Part Five: Mirrors, Lenses and

Images

Learning Goals
Distinguish between how we
see objects and images.
Explain the difference between
how an image forms in a mirror
and from a lens.
Find the focal point of a lens.
Measure the focal length of a
lens.

Mirrors, Lenses and Images

Objects are real physical things
that give off or reflect light rays.
Images are pictures of objects
that are formed in space where
light rays meet.

Images
Images are
created by
collecting many
rays from each
point on an
object and
bringing them
back together
again in a single

Cameras and images

A camera works by collecting the rays
from an object so they form an image
on the film.
Many rays can be focused to a single
point by a camera lens, forming the
image of that part of the railing.
A camera captures some but not all of
the rays.

Images in mirrors
The arrow on the
graph paper is an
object because it
is a physical
source of
(reflected) light.
The image of the
arrow appears in
the mirror.

Virtual and real images

The image in a
mirror is called a
virtual image
because the light
rays do not actually
come together to
form the image.
Real images, such
as those from
cameras, form
where light rays
meet.

Lenses
An ordinary lens is
a polished,
transparent disc,
usually made of
glass.
The shape of a
converging lens is
described as being
convex because
the surfaces curve
outward.

Lenses
The distance from the center of the
lens to the focal point is the focal
length.
Light can go through a lens in
either direction so there are
always two focal points, one on
either side of the lens.

Lenses
For a converging lens, the first surface
(air to glass) bends light rays toward
the normal.
At the second surface (glass to air), the
rays bend away from the normal line.

Drawing ray diagrams

Step 1: Draw a light ray passing
through the center of the lens.
Step 2: Draw a light ray that starts
parallel to the axis and bends at the
lens to pass through the far focal
point.
Step 3: Draw a light ray passing
through the near focal point.

Real images
A converging lens can form a
real image.
The place where the light comes
back together again is called the
focus.

Real images
The ray diagram
shows how the real
image is formed.
To make an image, a
lens collects rays
from every point on
an object.
Rays from each
point on the object
are brought back
together again to
make each point of
the image.

Real images and ray diagrams

To make an image,
a lens collects rays
from every point
on an object.
Rays from each
point on the object
are brought back
together again to
make each point of

Magnification and telescopes

Images may be
smaller than life size,
or equal to or larger
than life size.
The magnification of
an image is the ratio
of the size of the
image divided by the
size of the object.

Telescopes and images

To get higher magnification,
microscopes and telescopes use more
than one lens.
A refracting telescope has two
converging lenses with different focal
lengths.

Microscopes
A compound
microscope uses two
converging lenses.
The lens closest to
the object has a very
short focal length and
makes a real, larger,
inverted image of the
object inside the
microscope.

Images and converging lenses

A converging
lens becomes a
magnifying
glass when an
object is
located inside
the lenss focal
length.

Images and diverging lenses

A diverging lens
always has the
same ray
diagram, which
shows a smaller
image.
It doesnt
matter where
the object is,

Image Summary

Optical systems
Optical systems are built from
lenses, mirrors, and prisms.
Optical systems do two things:
collect light rays
change the light rays to form an
image, or process light in other
ways.

Simple optical system

A simple optical
system can be
made with a
pinhole in a box.
The image inside
the box forms
because light rays
that reach a point
on the box surface
are restricted by

Lenses in optical systems

The larger the
lens, the brighter
the image.
This is because a
larger lens
collects more
light rays.