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University of St Andrews
School of Physics and Astronomy


What is light?

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Associated tutorial questions

 

Light and water waves at May morningDiscussion of wave nature of light

Copper Vapour Laser, St AndrewsPhoton nature of light.

  • Photoelectric effect
  • Photon energy  E = hf
  • Wave particle duality

Spirograph Nebula, courtesy NASA, STScI/AURATypes of incoherent light sources

  • "Black-bodies" with thermally energised oscillating charge distributions
  • atomic lamps (gas dischange) with discrete transitions
  • fluorescent lamps - atomic lamp inside the tube excites a phosphor on the tube wall, which then de-excited by emitting over a wide wavelength range

Similar material to that presented in the lectures is available at:-

Interesting material on the history of optics.

Associated tutorial questions
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Created by, and copyright of, Bruce Sinclair, University of St Andrews; last modified 19.9.02