If you have ever wondered how light travels, in this article we will tell you. Although the characteristics of light and how light travels are things that are usually taught in school, it is natural that we have doubts. In addition, every day new research comes to light that gives us new data. For this reason, you have to be in continuous training. It is important to know how light travels because it is general knowledge information. Also, when we know how light travels through the universe, it will help us understand more. And, perhaps, it arouses our curiosity and we become fans of the subject.
Without entertaining ourselves for another second, we are going to tell you how light travels and what are its most important and surprising characteristics and data.
What is light?
Before knowing what movement something has, we should first know what that something is. Well, what is light? As we have all heard at one time or another, light is a wave. Specifically, light is an energy state of electromagnetic waves. Thanks to this energy we can illuminate the world and see what we have around us. Sometimes we forget the importance of light in our lives.
Light can be classified in two different ways according to its origin: natural or artificial. As we well know, the main source of natural light is the Sun. On the other hand, if we look at artificial light sources, we can think of oil lamps, candles or light bulbs. All these elements were created by the human being to create light when natural light was not there, that is why they are artificial sources.
One of the peculiarities of light is that it does not move in a fixed direction. It just moves in all directions, and because of that, the light is uniform. The problem comes when, from time to time, the path of light is hindered by an object. When this situation occurs, a black space is formed that we call shadow and that is the space where light cannot reach. Thanks to this shadow that light usually creates, we can infer where the source of light comes from.
How light travels?
To begin with, we must know that we humans cannot see all types of light. This is because light moves quickly through waves. What’s more, according to some research, no other element or object in the universe has been found to move as fast as light. Light travels at a speed of 300,000 kilometers per second, but specifically, it moves at a speed of 299,792,458 kilometers per second. But to round off it is said that it travels 300,000 kilometers. The medium through which light travels is usually a vacuum.
As we said before, there are havoc of lights that we cannot see. Each color is part of a light wave, and only some of them can be seen by the human eye.
What can light do?
Light can pass through various materials such as glass, glass objects, air and even water. The only difference is that when you go through these objects or items, your speed is affected. For example, when light waves come into contact with a watery surface, it becomes much slower. Exactly, when light travels through water it has an approximate speed of 224,844,349 kilometers per second. On the other hand, there is hardly any variation in speed when it comes into contact with air.
Light waves can only travel at their maximum speed when there is no object or movement getting in their way. That is why it is said that speed is measured in a vacuum. To know your maximum speed, you have to measure it when there is nothing influencing it.
The movement of light can become very slow and can even be absorbed by materials. This is the case of dark fabrics or thick, dark surfaces. Light moves much slower because it cannot pass through some materials, for example dark cloth. The black color absorbs the movement of light, preventing its reflection.
Reflection of light
Light reflection occurs when light undergoes a change of direction. This often occurs on glass or, rather, mirror surfaces. But, in reality, it happens with any object. Thanks to the reflection of light, we can see objects that do not emit their own light, thanks to the change of direction that the light undergoes.
Actually, there are two types of light reflection, one that allows us to see our image in the mirror and one that does not. First, there is specular reflection. When this type of reflection occurs, the light ray falls directly on a smooth, polished surface, such as a mirror. This causes the reflected light ray to be ordered and its direction to be in a straight line. This allows a copy of the image to be made and in this way we can see ourselves on a mirror surface.
On the other hand, there is diffuse reflection. This reflection occurs when the incident light ray meets an object that has an irregular surface. Not having a smooth surface to bounce off, the reflected light rays are directed in various directions. This is the case for objects that are opaque and do not have a mirror base. With light rays traveling in so many directions, it can’t replicate an image.
The refraction of light
Before we discussed characteristics of the refraction of light when we talked about the change in the speed of light on different surfaces. Refraction is the change in direction that a light beam undergoes when encountering a transparent surface, through which it can move. When coming into contact with a translucent surface such as air or water. When the refraction of light occurs in a medium such as water, the image that we perceive of the object that is inside the water is distorted. This occurs because the light rays are bent and due to the change in speed. As we have said before, they fly slower.
To finish, it would be good to reflect on light. Many times, until we stop to think about how light travels, we don’t think about all that light means for our lives. Without light and its properties of reflection and refraction, we would only be able to see objects that have their own light. It is very important to have knowledge of how the most basic things in the world work. We are used to seeing everything from a young age, but what if we stop to think about what our life would be like without light or without all the light we have? It would certainly radically change our day to day.
We hope this article has helped you understand how light travels and, furthermore, how it works and how we are able to see all the objects and people around us. Knowing does not take place, and having this information can make us think about how lucky we are.