Chapter 8 ‑ Light & Wave Phenomena Study Notes

Waves: Fundamental Concepts

• Definition
  • A wave is a disturbance or oscillation that transports energy through space and/or matter without permanently transporting the medium itself.
• Descriptive parameters
  • Amplitude y
  • Maximum displacement or, for sound/light, a measure of intensity/density.
  • Wavelength \lambda
  • Spatial period; the physical “length” of one full cycle.
  • Period T and frequency f
  • f = 1/T, measured in \text{Hz}.
  • Wave speed v
  • v = \frac{\lambda}{T} = \lambda f (useful for water, sound, seismic, etc.)
  • Conceptual link
  • By timing how long one wavelength takes to pass a point, you experimentally extract velocity.
• Energy transport, not matter transport
  • Classic demonstration: a buoy on the ocean moves up-and-down rather than drifting with a passing swell; energy travels, the buoy (matter) does not.

Light as an Electromagnetic Wave

• Nature of light
  • Transverse electromagnetic (EM) wave; oscillating electric and magnetic fields at right angles, both perpendicular to propagation.
• In vacuum
  • Constant speed: c = 3.0 \times 10^8\,\text{m/s} \approx 186{,}282\,\text{mi/s}.
• Characterization
  • Distinguished by either wavelength \lambda or frequency f.
  • Relationship: c = \lambda f (with \lambda typically in \text{m} or \text{nm}; f in \text{Hz}).
  • Because c is fixed in vacuum, higher frequency ↔ shorter wavelength.

Visible Spectrum & Energy of Photons

• Humanly visible slice ≈ 400–700 nm.
• Photon energy
  • Planck’s constant h = 6.626 \times 10^{-34}\,\text{J·s}.
  • E = hf = \frac{hc}{\lambda}.
• Example: red light
  • \lambda \approx 700\,\text{nm}.
  • E \approx 2.83\times10^{-19}\,\text{J} \approx 1.77\,\text{eV}.
• Real-world connection
  • Solar panels depend on photon energy to exceed semiconductor band gaps; red light is just above the threshold for typical silicon (~1.1 eV).

Human Vision: Cones, Rods, Color Perception

• Photoreceptors
  • Cones (≈6 million/eye)
  • Three classes with peak sensitivities: L-cones (red), M-cones (green), S-cones (blue).
  • Responsible for color discrimination in bright light.
  • Rods (≈120 million/eye)
  • No color info; extremely sensitive to low light, encode brightness.
• Trichromatic processing
  • Brain interprets relative cone stimulation as hue; e.g., yellow = strong L + M, weak S.
• Practical link
  • RGB display technology imitates cone response curves to trick eyes into perceiving full spectrum.

Color Blindness

• Statistics
  • ~5 % of men, ~0.5 % of women (sex-linked recessive genes on X-chromosome).
• Types
  • Protanopia / protanomaly: missing or weak L-cones → red-green confusion.
  • Deuteranopia / deuteranomaly: missing or weak M-cones (also red-green issues).
  • Tritanopia: rare S-cone deficiency → blue-yellow confusion.
  • Monochromacy: only one or zero functioning cone types; world seen essentially in shades of gray.
• Significance
  • Influences career eligibility (pilots, electricians) and design of inclusive visual materials (traffic signals use shape + color).

Image Formation & Human Eye Optics

• Pinhole principle
  • Light through a small aperture produces an inverted image on the opposite side; foundation of camera obscura and retinal imaging.
• Anatomy shortcuts
  • Cornea: primary fixed lens (≈2/3 focusing power).
  • Pupil: variable aperture (iris sets diameter, controls depth of field & brightness).
  • Lens: fine-tunes focus via accommodation (ciliary muscles change curvature).
  • Retina: light-sensitive screen; image inverted, brain flips perception.

Vision Defects: Myopia & Hyperopia

• Myopia (nearsightedness)
  • Image converges in front of retina.
  • Causes: elongated eyeball or overly powerful cornea/lens.
  • Remedy: diverging (concave) corrective lenses push focal point back.
• Hyperopia (farsightedness)
  • Image focuses behind retina.
  • Causes: shortened eyeball or weak lens system.
  • Remedy: converging (convex) corrective lenses draw focal point forward.
• LASIK reference: reshapes corneal curvature to correct either defect.

Mirrors & Virtual Images

• Law of reflection: angle of incidence = angle of reflection.
• Plane mirror
  • Produces upright, laterally inverted, virtual image at same distance behind mirror.
• Applications: periscopes, kaleidoscopes, shaving mirrors.

Retro-Reflectors & Lunar Laser Ranging

• Retro-reflector: device (corner cube or cat’s eye) that returns incident light back along its original path regardless of angle.
• Apollo missions left arrays on Moon → Earth-based lasers measure round-trip time to
  • Confirm c at astronomical scale.
  • Test General Relativity (e.g., equivalence principle) by monitoring Earth–Moon distance changes to mm precision.

Index of Refraction & Snell’s Law

• In a medium
  • Light speed v_m < c because EM field interacts with material electrons.
  • Index n = \frac{c}{v_m}.
  • Vacuum: n=1; air ≈1.0003, water ≈1.33, typical glass ≈1.5.
• Snell’s Law
  • n1 \sin\theta1 = n2 \sin\theta2.
  • Determines bending direction; toward normal when entering higher n.
• Conceptual tie-in: slower side has shorter wavelength (yet same frequency) → wavefronts crowd, ray bends.

Atmospheric Refraction: Mirages

• Inferior mirage (hot road “water”)
  • Hot air near ground has lower density → lower n → light from sky bends upward into observer’s eye; brain interprets as reflective puddle.
• Superior mirage (polar regions)
  • Temperature inversion (cold below warm) bends rays downward, lifting distant objects.

Total Internal Reflection (TIR)

• Critical angle \theta_c (from dense to rarer medium)
  • \sin\thetac = \frac{n2}{n_1}.
  • Example: glass-to-air \thetac \approx 41.8^\circ (with n1=1.5).
  • Water-to-air \thetac \approx 48.8^\circ (with n1=1.33).
• If \thetai > \thetac ⇒ 100 % reflection, no refraction.

Rainbows (TIR + Dispersion)

• Sunlight enters spherical raindrop → refracts, partially reflects inside, refracts out.
• Different \lambda values → slightly different n (dispersion).
  • Red (longest \lambda) bends least (≈42°).
  • Violet bends most.
• Observer sees concentric colored arc; secondary bow after double reflection, reversed order.

Fiber Optics

• Core (high n) surrounded by cladding (lower n) ⇒ light trapped via TIR.
• Advantages
  • Low loss, immunity to EM interference, massive bandwidth → foundation of global internet & medical endoscopy.

Water Light Hole Demo

• Underwater diver looking up sees bright circular “window” (Snell’s window) with radius determined by \theta_c.

Polarization of Light

• Unpolarized light = electric field vectors in all planes perpendicular to propagation.
• Linear polarizer transmits one component, absorbs orthogonal.
• Two polarizers
  • Parallel axes: maximum transmission.
  • Crossed (90°): ideally zero intensity (Malus’s law I = I_0 \cos^2\theta).
• Real-world relevance: glare-reduction sunglasses (block horizontally polarized reflections off water/road).

Liquid Crystals & LCD Technology

• Twisted-nematic LC sandwiched between polarizer ("polarizer") and analyzer.
  • No field: molecules twist plane of polarization 90°, light passes → bright pixel.
  • Electric field applied: molecules align, no twist, analyzer blocks → dark pixel.
• Indium-tin-oxide transparent electrodes enable matrix addressing.

3-D Vision & Polarizing Glasses

• Binocular disparity
  • Each eye receives slightly different image; brain fuses → depth perception.
• Cinema 3-D
  • Projector displays two superposed images with orthogonal circular/linear polarizations.
  • Glasses pass correct polarization to each eye, recreating binocular cues.
• Alternative: active shutter glasses sync with screen, but rely on same underlying human cortex processing.

Diffraction & Interference

• Light behaves as wave → bends around obstacles, forms patterns.
• Single-slit minima condition
  • a\sin\theta = m\lambda\,,\; m = \pm1,\pm2,\dots.
• Double-slit maxima (screen distance D, slit separation a)
  • y_m = \frac{m\lambda D}{a} → spacing proportional to \lambda.
• Practical illustration: CD tracks act as reflection grating producing rainbow colors; engineers exploit for spectrometers.

Spectroscopy: Spectral Lines & Element Identification

• Atoms emit/absorb only discrete photon energies (quantized orbit transitions).
• Hydrogen: 4 prominent Balmer lines (visible).
• Helium: ≈13 lines in visible.
• Metals (e.g., aluminum) show dense line forests.
• Applications
  • Astronomers deduce stellar composition & redshift; forensic scientists identify substances via flame test; neon lights colored by gas mixture spectra.