Experiments with light

Mirror, mirror on the wall

Have you ever wondered why you can see your face in a mirror? This occurs because mirrors are
very smooth and shiny. Light bounces, or reflects, off of the smooth and shiny surface of mirrors.
When you see your face in a mirror you are seeing light from your face reflecting off of the mirror.

Required Materials
o

Science notebook

4 x 6 inch Mirror

Masking Tape

Paper

Activity Directions
1. You need to work with a partner to do this activity. Find a place where there is a wall with
plenty of space around it. Attach the mirror at eye level on a wall with masking tape. Cover
the mirror with a piece of paper.
2. Now, both you and your partner should try to guess where you both need to stand to see
each other's reflection on the mirror. When you both agree on the places, mark them on the
floor with 6-inch pieces of masking tape.
3. Remove the paper from the mirror. Stand at your chosen place to determine if you can see
each other in the mirror.
4. If you can't see each other, try different places until you can. Mark the places that work with
the 6-inch pieces of masking tape.
5. Next, place long pieces of masking tape on the floor from the center of your 6-inch place
markers to the wall straight under the center of the mirror. These should be straight lines.
6. Look at the angles made by the taped lines on the floor and the wall to see if they are the
same size. Remember that light bounces off a mirror at the same angle that it arrives.
Therefore, when the light from your face travels to the mirror on the wall, it should bounce off
the mirror at the same angle to the eyes of your partner.

7. In your science notebook, write a description of what you did in this activity. Include a
diagram with lines showing how light reflects off a mirror.

Here's What's Happening

Have you ever wondered why you can see your face in a mirror? This occurs because mirrors are
very smooth and shiny. Light bounces, or reflects, off of the smooth and shiny surface of mirrors.
When you see your face in a mirror you are seeing light from your face reflecting off of the mirror.
The way light bounces off mirrors is very much like the way a ball bounces against a hard surface.
You can throw a ball straight down, and it will bounce straight back at you. Or, you can bounce a ball
at an angle and it will bounce off the floor at the same angle away from you. Light reflects the same
way off of a mirror. In other words, light reflects from a mirror at the same angle as it arrives.

Black is black-or is it?

This activity explores capillary action - how water moves up paper - and chromatography - how
different elements of the ink are carried along at different rates, allowing you to see that black ink is
actually made up of many different colors.

Required Materials
o

(1) white basket-style coffee filter *

Paperclip

Water

Clear plastic cup

Ruler

Black felt tip pen or marker (not a permanent ink) *

o

Pilot Razor Point or other water based markers work well

Sharpie and Expo White Board markers do not work

* You will need more than one coffee filter and other marker or pen colors to perform this experiment

Activity Directions
1. Start by folding the coffee filter in half three times to form a triangle. If necessary, use a
paper clip to hold it together.

2. Make a inch dot with the black marker about a inch above the point of the triangle. Allow
the black dot to dry.
3. Put inch of water in the bottom of the cup.
4. Place the tip of the coffee filter in the cup, making sure the dot does not enter the water.
5. Finally, watch closely to what happens as the filter absorbs the water.
Food (Or Drink?) For Thought

What did you discover about the color black?

Try experimenting with other marker colors and making predictions to see if your hypothesis
is correct.

Here's What's Happening

Most nonpermanent markers use inks that are made of colored pigments and water. On a coffee
filter, the water in the ink carries the pigment onto the paper. When the ink dries, the pigment
remains on the paper.
When you dip the paper in water, the dried pigments dissolve. As the water travels up the paper, it
carries the pigments along with it. Different-colored pigments are carried along at different rates;
some travel farther and faster than others. How fast each pigment travels depends on the size of the
pigment molecule and on how strongly the pigment is attracted to the paper. Since the water carries
the different pigments at different rates, the black ink separates to reveal the colors that were mixed
to make it.
Why does mixing many colors of ink make black?
Ink and paint get their colors by absorbing some of the colors in white light and reflecting others.
Green ink looks green because it reflects the green part of white light and absorbs all the other
colors. Red ink looks red because it reflects red light and absorbs all the other colors. When you mix
green, red, blue, and yellow ink, each ink that you add absorbs more light. That leaves less light to
reflect to your eye. Since the mixture absorbs light of many colors and reflects very little, you end up
with black.

Make money appear before your eyes

If light meets a boundary between two materials head on, what happens? When it strikes the
boundary between transparent materials at an angle, which way does it go? How do these things
relate to making money appear and disappear?

Required Materials
o

An opaque cup or bowl

A piece of transparent cellophane tape

A coin

A glass of water

Activity Directions
1. Tape the coin securely to the bottom of the inside of the cup or
bowl.
2. Move your head slowly away (back) from the cup until the coin is
just beyond your view.
3. Hold your head in this position as you carefully pour the water into
the cup.
4. The coin will reappear before your eyes.

Here's What's Happening

You can't see the coin because some of the light rays that come from the coin are blocked by the
cup and the rest of the rays from the coin go above your eyes. When you put water in the cup, the
light previously hitting your forehead bends down toward your eyes and the coin comes into view.
Thinking of Light as Waves
Scientists could not explain some of the behavior of light by thinking about it as being made up of
streams of particles. So they invented another way of thinking about light, describing it as being
made up of waves. It's worth a little effort to think about what a wave is. If you drop a pebble into a
still pond, the pebble causes waves that travel in ever-widening circles from the disturbance. The
high point of each wave is the crest; the low point between crests is the trough. The distance from
one crest to the next or from one trough to the next is called the wavelength. A wave is started by a
pulse of energy, and it travels through time and space. Water waves are only a model for light
waves. Light waves are similar to water waves because they are also made up of crests and
troughs, but light wavelengths are ten million times smaller than water wavelengths. And light doesn't
need a medium, like water, to travel through. Light travels through the vacuum of space.

Refraction can be explained if we think of light as being made up of waves. In the preceding
experiment, when a wave of light from the coin reaches the water-air boundary at an angle, one part
of the wave enters the air before the other parts. This part of the wave speeds up because light
travels faster in air than in water. The other parts of the light wave that are still in the water are
traveling at a slower speed than the part in the air. This happens to each part of the wave as it
leaves the water, and this change in speed causes the light to bend.
Here's another way you can think about this. Imagine that you are with ten of your friends at the
beach and you all stand in a row to race toward the water. If you all ran toward the sea at the same
speed and reached the water all at the same time, the water would slow all of you down at the same
moment. But suppose that your lineup heads for the water at an angle. Jim, your friend on one end
of the line, reaches the water before Kristin, who is standing next to him. And Kristin reaches it
before the friend next to her, and so on. As each person hits the water, he or she slows down. By the
time everyone is in the water, the whole line is running more slowly in another direction.
This analogy is similar to what happens to light waves: If the light meets a boundary between two
materials head on, it will pass from one to the other without changing direction. When it strikes the
boundary between transparent materials at an angle, it refracts.

Release a Rainbow
In this activity, you will create a water prism to break light into the seven colors of the
rainbow.
Required Materials
o A sunny window
o A big bowl full of water
o A small mirror
o A sheet of white paper
Activity Directions
1. Set the bowl near the window.
2. Place the mirror part way into the water facing the light.
3. Hold the piece of paper up to intercept the reflection.
4. Splash! Roy G. Biv should appear on the paper in bands of color.
Here's What's Happening

This experiment demonstrates what happens when light is refracted. When light enters
another substance of a different density, it slows down or speeds up. This translates into
bending. The thing is, white light is made up of many different wavelengths. Each of
these wavelengths bends differently. Violet light bends the most and red light bends the
least. The difference in angle means the light leaves the water in different positions,
showing as bands of color. We dont usually see this effect of refraction because the
split light is too small. In this experiment the mirror amplifies the visible spectrum.

Watch TV Upside Down on a Piece of Paper

You can make an image with your magnifying glass of almost anything: a window with
the sun shining through it, a tree outside in your yard, or even the dog in your neighbors
yard. However, these are rather boring things to look at, especially when your home
contains something much more entertaining. One of the greatest image-generating
sources in your house is the television set.
Required Materials
o A magnifying glass
o A piece of white paper
o A television
Activity Directions
1. Turn off the lights, tune your TV to your favorite show, and stand back about ten
feet from the set.
2. Hold the lens in one hand and the paper in the other.
3. Position the lens vertically between the TV and the paper and hold the paper
about six inches from the lens.
4. Both the lens and the paper should be parallel to the TV screen and at right
angles to the floor.
5. Move the paper away from and toward the lens until you see a focused image of
your television picture.
6. Sit back and watch the show - but you may have to turn your head upside down
because the image is inverted and backward.

If you are not satisfied with the size of your image, you can change the magnification by
changing your distance from the TV set. Try standing twenty feet from the set and then
try two feet.
Here's What's Happening
When light leaves a point on the TV, it spreads out it many different directions. As a
result, light from one point on the TV hits the entire surface of the magnifying lens. The
lens then bends and redirects this light so that it comes back together again as a single
point. This happens to every point of light that makes up the image on the TV screen. In
this way, the TV image is reconstructed by the lens.
The lens bends light from the left portion of the TV, redirecting it to the right portion of
the image, and the right portion to the left. Light from the top of the TV gets redirected to
the bottom of the image and vice versa. As a result, the image is upside down and
backward.
You may notice that when you are closer to the TV, you have to hold the paper farther
from the lens to find a clear image than when you are farther away from the TV. The
location of the focal point of a lens determines the size of the image and the distance of
the image from the lens for any particular distance to the object.

Blue Sky-Red Sunset

Whenever it's not completely filled with clouds, we can see that the sky is blue. As the
sun rises and as it sets, it looks red. These two observations are related, as this
experiment will show.
Required Materials
o Flashlight
o A transparent container with flat parallel sides (a 10-liter [2-gallon] aquarium is
ideal)
o 250 milliliters (1 cup) of milk
Activity Directions
1. Set the container on a table where you can view it from all sides.
2. Fill it full with water.
3. Light the flashlight and hold it against the side of the container so its beam shines
through the water. Try to see the beam as it shines through the water. You may

be able to see some particles of dust floating in the water; they appear white.
However, it is rather difficult to see exactly where the beam passes through the
water.
4. Add about 60 milliliters ( cup) of milk to the water and stir it. Hold the flashlight
to the side of the container. Notice that the beam of light is now easily visible as it
passes through the water. Look at the beam both from the side and from the end,
where the beam shines out of the container. From the side, the beam appears
slightly blue, and on the end, it appears somewhat yellow.
5. Add another cup of milk to the water and stir it. Now the beam of light looks
even more blue from the side and more yellow, perhaps even orange, from the
end.
6. Add the rest of the milk to the water and stir the mixture. Now the beam looks
even more blue, and from the end, it looks quite orange. Furthermore, the beam
seems to spread more now than it did before; it is not quite as narrow.
Here's What's Happening
What causes the beam of light from the flashlight to look blue from the side and orange
when viewed head on? Light usually travels in straight lines, unless it encounters the
edges of some material. When the beam of a flashlight travels through air, we cannot
see the beam from the side because the air is uniform and the light from the flashlight
travels in a straight line. The same is true when the beam travels through water, as in
this experiment. The water is uniform and the beam travels in a straight line. However, if
there should be some dust in the air or water, then we can catch a glimpse of the beam
where the light is scattered by the edges of the dust particles. When you added milk to
the water, you added many tiny particles to the water. Milk contains many tiny particles
of protein and fat suspended in water. These particles scatter the light and make the
beam of the flashlight visible from the side. Different colors of light are scattered by
different amounts. Blue light is scattered much more than orange or red light. Because
we see the scattered light from the side of the beam, and blue light is scattered more,
the beam appears blue from the side. Because the orange and red light is scattered
less, more orange and red light travels in a straight line from the flashlight. When you
look directly into the beam of the flashlight, it looks orange or red. What does this
experiment have to do with blue sky and orange sunsets? The light you see when you
look at the sky is sunlight that is scattered by air molecules and particles of dust in the
atmosphere. If there were no scattering, and all of the light travelled straight from the
sun to the earth, the sky would look dark as it does at night. The sunlight is scattered by
the air molecules in the same way as the light from the flashlight is scattered by
particles in milk in this experiment. Looking at the sky is like looking at the flashlight
beam from the side: you're looking at scattered light that is blue. When you look at the

setting sun, it's like looking directly into the beam from the flashlight: you're seeing the
light that isn't scattered, namely orange and red. What causes the sun to appear deep
orange or even red at sunset or sunrise? At sunset or sunrise, the sunlight we observe
has traveled a longer path through the atmosphere than the sunlight we see at noon.
Therefore, there is more scattering, and nearly all of the light direct from the sun is red.
Light coming from the sun is made up of a large range of wavelengths. It contains light
from the ultraviolet, visible, and infrared regions
Required Materials
o Prism
o Thermometer
o Black tape
Activity Directions
Cover the tip (metal part) of the thermometer with a piece of black tape. This will help it
absorb light. Put the prism in the path of the sunlight and use it to create a rainbow
pattern on a flat, white surface (The distance between the prism and the flat surface will
determine the width of the rainbow spectrum. Larger distance will allow it to spread out
more, but intensity will be lower.) Place the tip of the thermometer in the blue region and
leave it for two minutes, then record the temperature. Do this again for the green and
the red. Now put the thermometer in the region just past the red, where there appears to
be no light, and record the temperature again. Where is the temperature highest?
Here's What's Happening
Much of the UV is filtered out by our atmosphere, leaving mostly visible and infrared
radiation. We can see the visible with our eyes, but what about the infrared? When light
is absorbed by a material, it can heat up. We can use this property of light to detect light
that we cannot see.

Make a Light Fountain

Use this activity to illustrate light reflection, specifically total internal reflection, as well as how fiber
optics work.

Required Materials
o

Clear plastic bottle with label removed

Duct tape

Blue painter's tape

Dark room

Sink or bucket

Thumbtack

Corkscrew

Flashlight

Activity Directions
1. Place a 2-inch piece of duct tape on the side of the bottle to create a "patch."
2. Use the thumbtack to punch a hole in the center of the tape patch.
3. Stick a piece of painters tape over the hole in the bottle. (Later, you will be able to pull off the
blue tape without pulling off the duct tape.)
4. Fill the bottle with water.
5. Turn on the flashlight and turn out the lights.
6. With one hand, hold the bottle over the bucket or the edge of the sink. With your other hand,
hold the flashlight on the side of the bottle across from the hole.
7. Remove the blue tape.
8. How does the light enter the bottle and what does it do as it comes out of the hole in the
side? Now place the tip of the corkscrew into the hole you already have made and turn it to
make the hole a little larger. What do you see now? How about if you catch the water in
another container like a bowl as it drains?

Here's What's Happening

The light ray inside the stream of water behaves as it would inside an optical fiber. Optical fiber
works like this: you send a light beam into one end of the fiber and it comes out the other end, just
as light travels through the stream of water in your experiment. It doesnt matter if the fiber is
straight, curved, or bent into loops; the light beam travels all the way through and comes out the
other end. This is called total internal reflection. The light beam bounces around inside the fiber,

reflecting back and forth off the walls. It doesnt pass through the walls and out of the fiber, and it
doesnt stop until it comes out the far end.

Lose a glass in a glass

Use this activity to demonstrate the role of indexes of refraction in our ability to
differentiate the appearance of different materials. Note: adult supervision is
recommended for this activity because it involves paint thinner.
Required Materials
o A clear glass jar free of labels or other marking patterns
o A smaller clear jar that fits inside the larger one
o Paint thinner - also known as petroleum distillate (Caution: We suggest that you
use this substance only with an adult present - it is poisonous and can also burn
your skin or eyes. Use in a well-ventilated place because the fumes can be
harmful. Be sure there are no open flames in the room, as this substance is
flammable.)
Activity Directions
1. Put the smaller jar into the larger one.
2. Fill the smaller jar and the space between the two with paint thinner.
3. The small jar seems to simply disappear.
4. When you are finished with the experiment, carefully pour the paint thinner back
into its original container and seal tightly.
Here's What's Happening
The speed of light through any transparent material is always slower than the speed of
light in a vacuum. Scientists have measured the speed of light in many transparent
materials. They have assigned specific numbers to a variety of materials. The numbers
compare the speed of light in each of the different materials with the speed of light in a
vacuum. This number is called the material's index refraction. The index of refraction is
also a measure of how much a material will bend light. A material that has a high index
of refraction, like a diamond, will bend light more than a material with lower index of
refraction, like water.
You can see a boundary line between two transparent materials only when they have
different indexes of refraction. It's easy to see the edges of a glass jar in air. You see the

outlines of the smaller jar when it is inside the larger one because it is surrounded by
air. Paint thinner has an index of refraction that is very close to the index of refraction of
glass. When you replace the air with paint thinner, the light is no longer bent at the
boundary of the inner glass, and you can no longer see its outline.