MEDICAL OPTICS ASSIGNMENT

A.SUNITHA

LIGHT
Electromagnetic spectrum and visible light:
EM radiation, or EMR is classified by wavelength into radio, microwave, infrared, the visible region that we perceive as light, ultraviolet, X-rays and gamma rays.

Visible light :
Commonly referred to simply as light It is electromagnetic radiation that is visible to the human eye, and is responsible for the sense of sight. Light can act as a wave(electro magnetic) as well as a particle(photon). Visible light has a wavelength in the range of about 380 nanometres (nm). In vacuum, the speed of light is 300,000 kilometers per second

Propagation of light:
Scientists noticed in the 17th century that light has properties of a wave phenomenon. All other wave phenomena that they knew, such as water waves and sound waves, require a physical medium to travel through. Surely, something had to do the waving. For example, there are no water waves without water, and sound does not travel through the vacuum of empty space (so all movies in which you can hear a space ships travel through space are wrong). People therefore assumed that light also needs a medium to travel through, and that medium had to fill the whole Universe (because we can see the planets and stars) and but it could not give any friction (because otherwise the planets would have ground to a halt long ago because of the head wind from the medium). People started searching for proof of the unknown medium, which they called the aether. The search for the aether turned out to be fruitless. It does not require a material medium. In fact, gas and dust tend to absorb light and make it hard to see very far (e.g., try looking through fog or clouds). Light is able to travel through both vacuums and air without any problem. It all has to do with the dual nature of light. Light travels through space as electromagnetic radiation. The waves oscillate perpendicular in the direction of propagation energy. The photon because of its weird nature as a force carrier called a boson has no mass. However it can still be absorbed, reflected, or refracted if it come in contact with a medium. That is why like sound the speed of light slightly varies between when it is in our atmosphere and when it is in space. In air medium it travels as waves by vibrating through the medium. In space the particle does not need to interact with a medium in fact its speed improves in a vacuum. The main thing that can stop or slow down light in space is gravity. It is proposed and proven in general relativity that space and time is one entity and that gravity is a curve in space-time. In quantum physics particles operate on a flat plane. So if a photon is moving on the plane of space time near a massive object like a black hole it would act like a penny in a cyclone machine. The curve would change the direction of the photon catching it in its funnel.

When we see pictures of space they are pictures of space from millions of years ago because light took millions of years to reach earth especially the light from distant galaxies. Light from sun reaches earth by radiation of its matter. However, there are also pictures from objects in space that are nearer to us, like the stars in our own galaxy. Some of the light from the stars reaches earth. Light vibrates against its own electrically charged particles. Therefore, light can travel through the near-vacuum conditions of outer space. And through this mechanism light travels millions of light years and reaches earth. First image from space

It takes about 8 minutes for the Sun's light to get to Earth. So if the Sun explodes because of a Supernova or other, we would know 8 minutes later!

Light travels from sun to earth. If the medium between sun and earth is water rather than vacuum then light will take 2-1/2 minutes more to reach earth.

GALAXY

CONCLUSION:
In the end despite the big things we know about what light is and how it works we still have many questions that are not answered. For example why are light massless but still acts like a particle? Also if light is a manifestation of a fundamental particle does it mean a force like gravity might also have a corresponding article. These are questions left for future scientists to discover.