Vistory Creative 1 What is Light?

POP 101

What is Light?
Physics of Photography 101
Besides being, in my opinion, the most important thing for a photographer or
cinematographer to understand, light is a special kind of physical
phenomenon. It has a lot of controversial history and a really interesting
background, but above all, light is the way we as visual artists can make a
living.
Light is both a particle and a wave, a phenomenon described in one of
science’s least intriguing terms, particle-wave duality. Most things we interact
with (or “sense”) are made of matter, with the exception of sound, which,
importantly enough, is a different type of sense that light borrows from, too
(more on that in a second).

Light is both a particle and a

wave.

“Matter” here just mean protons, neutrons, and electrons. We don’t have
to go really any deeper than that, so we won’t. Matter is anything that has
mass. Matter is comprised of particles, tiny, undetectable but heavily inferable
units from which everything else is comprised.
Well, when a proton marries a neutron and has a little electron baby, it’s
known as an atom (well, maybe that’s not the best analogy, but they’re a close-
knit community). Electrons, like small children, have various states of energy
and run all around the nucleus of the proton and neutron. Depending on how
much other matter and energy bump into the electron, it will have more or less
energy. These states of energy are known as valence levels. When an electron
loses a set amount of energy, it emits it as electromagnetic radiation (tah-dah,
we have light!). Depending on how many levels of energy it lost and what kind
of atom it was, a different power and wavelength of light is emitted.
It’s important here to note that light is a massless particle. Yes, you read
that right. There is no mass, at all, in light. It is just a form of energy. That is
why we don’t measure light in terms of volume or weight like we do every
other particle with mass, but in units per second, in this case, joules. 1 Joule
Vistory Creative 2 What is Light? POP 101

per second equals 1 Watt. However, light is also still a unit like any other
particle. We can count individual photons.
What’s up with those waves? Waves in a quantum field like electricity or
magnetism are merely interactions between particles, carrying only energy,
not necessarily mass. If you’re confused like I was when I first learned this, let
me give you an analogy. Think of the difference in water and a wave. Water is
the matter. The wave is the interaction of that matter with one another,
creating a sense of motion. Now, a quantum wave like light doesn’t have to
have motion. But it sure as hell does need particles and interactions between
them.
Waves travel in a way that measure with graphs. Those graphs, like
waveforms and spectra, show the power of the light at various points in time.
At the top is a peak. At the middle is the node. And the inverse of a peak is a
valley. The distance between peaks is where we get the frequency, which is
almost the same thing as wavelength. And the wavelength determines how we
perceive the light by providing the various hues that we see.

Recap
That was a lot of information, so let’s recap:

• Light is a particle and a wave (particle-wave duality).

• A particle is any unit of matter (except light is massless!). This means that
individual “packets” of light called photons can be counted.
• A wave is the patterned interaction of individual particles. Think water
versus a wave.
• Particles determine intensity of light, also known as power.
• Wavelengths determine color, also known as hue.