Light
Overview
Light is dual-natured because it is a wave that is made out of particles called photons. Photons are the smallest particles humans have ever known
Optics
- Main article: Optics
Etymologically, optics is the study of vision. Light waves are electromagnetic waves - they consist of mutually perpendicular electric fields and magnetic fields, and can travel through a vacuum. Optics is the study of electromagnetic waves in general. So it covers all waves in the electromagnetic spectrum given below:
One of the most controversial questions in optics is whether light is a wave or a ray. Accordingly, there are two branches of optics, but only ray optics belongs to classical physics. Wave optics are a topic of modern physics. In ray, optics covers topics such as reflection and refraction and the dispersion of white light into its constituent colors.
See also
- Physics books
- Physics competitions
- Physics scholarships
- Physics summer programs
- Gamma rays
- X-Rays
- Ultraviolet rays
- Visible light
- Infrared Rays
- Microwaves
- Radio waves
- Electricity
- magnetism
- Classical Mechanics
- Statistical Mechanics
- Acoustics
- Optics
- Thermodynamics
- Electromagnetism
- Relativity
- Quantum Mechanics
- Nuclear Physics
- Condensed Matter Physics
- Particle Physics
- Astrophysics
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