What is Light?

Light
Light is an electromagnetic wave.
Electromagnetic waves can travel through
empty space or matter and consists of
changing matter and electric fields.
The electric and magnetic fields vibrate at
right angles to one another.

Electric & Magnetic Fields

An electric field surrounds every charged

object.

Electric fields pull oppositely charged objects

towards them and push like charged objects
away from them.

A magnetic field surrounds every magnet.

Magnetic fields pull metal objects towards the

magnet.

EM waves are produced

An EM wave is produced by the vibration
of an electrically charged particle.
When an electric field starts vibrating a
magnetic field is created.
The vibration of the electric and magnetic
fields creates an EM wave.
The transfer of EM waves is known as
radiation.

Speed of Light
Light waves travel at approximately
300,000 km/s.
Light waves travel approximately 880,000
times faster than sound waves.
Light travels around the Earth 7.5 times in
one second.
You will use the speed formula (S = D / T)
in your calculations involving the speed of
light.

Light from the Sun

It takes approximately 8.3 minutes for light
produced from the sun to travel the
150,000,000 km from the sun to the Earth.
The EM waves from the sun are the major
source of energy on Earth.
Although Earth receives a large amount of
energy from the sun the Earth receives
only a very small portion of the total
amount of energy produced by the sun.