Let’s Shine a Little Light!

Let’s Shine a Little Light!

Even though it is essential to day to day activities and such an indispensable commodity it would be fair to assume that light, specifically its electromagnetic spectrum is not fully understood by the average Joe or Jane walking down the street. Light is something everybody is familiar with but few could correctly explain what it is composed of and the laws and properties by which it is governed. Even though in some instances light as a whole can be a confusing topic to grasp, having an idea of what illuminates our lives is not only rewarding but important and honestly interesting!

Credit: Reddit (https://www.reddit.com)

Even though light seems pretty straight forward in itself, it is generally misunderstood and thought to have properties it in fact doesn’t. Even though most people know that light comes in different wavelengths and therefore different energies people assume different wavelengths travel at different speeds, even though it all in fact travels at the speed of light. Although understandable people also at times think radio waves can be heard and are not part of the visible light spectrum, and that microwaves are particularly small even though neither is true!

 
         
 The topic of light and the electromagnetic spectrum can be confusing, but once you get the general understanding of it, it’s a simple topic to grasp.

Credit: NASA (http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/Images/science/EM_spectrum_compare) 

Light is made up of all these different rays while the part of it that is visible to the naked eye is the visible light, it is composed of all these other rays as well! The electromagnetic spectrum is the collective term for all known frequencies and their linked wavelengths of the known components of light. Although people on a day to day basis only see the visible light portion of the entire electromagnetic spectrum of light the sun and other stars like it also emit light at wavelengths both longer and shorter than visible light that are invisible to our naked eyes. The shorter a wavelength the higher frequency and more energetic the light wave is with gamma rays being the shortest and most energetic wave length. In the other direction radio waves are the longest and least energetic and both are invisible to our naked eyes. Since we can't see them in directly you may think that you don't cross paths with these different waves of light but people produce infrared waves, x ray machines shoot out x-rays(naturally) and radio transmitters and microwave ovens are responsible for radio and microwaves respectively.
Although when people think of light they just think of the yellowish glow that comes off from a bulb, there is an entire spectrum of different wave lengths that are also present that we just can't see. And even though we can't see them they are essential to our everyday lives and are more common than we think. Lighting up our lives in each waves own specific way.