Table of Contents
- 1 What is light and how does this differ from how light is perceived by our eyes?
- 2 What happens when light is transmitted?
- 3 What happens when bright light hits the eye?
- 4 Do we see transmitted light?
- 5 How does light reflect in the eye?
- 6 What happens when light hits the retina of the eye?
- 7 How does light interact with atoms and molecules?
- 8 What happens when a light wave strikes an object?
What is light and how does this differ from how light is perceived by our eyes?
Light is simply a wave with a specific wavelength or a mixture of wavelengths; it has no color in and of itself. An object that is emitting or reflecting light to our eye appears to have a specific color as the result of the eye-brain response to the wavelength.
What happens when light is transmitted?
Transmission of light Waves can also be transmitted at the boundary between two different materials. When waves are transmitted, they continues through the material. They are transparent because light is transmitted with very little absorption. Translucent materials transmit some light but are not completely clear.
What three things can happen when light strikes an object give an example of each?
When light strikes an object, the light can be reflected, transmitted, or absorbed.
What happens when bright light hits the eye?
When intense light rays reach your eye, the iris responds by constricting the pupil, thus protecting the retina and helping it process the incoming image better. The opposite occurs in low light when the iris dilates the pupil to allow as much light in as possible.
Do we see transmitted light?
The transmitted light is the light we see, and it looks orange. Colored objects look the way they do because of reflected light. When sunlight is shined on a green leaf, the violet, red and orange wavelengths are absorbed.
How we can see light?
When light hits the retina (a light-sensitive layer of tissue at the back of the eye), special cells called photoreceptors turn the light into electrical signals. These electrical signals travel from the retina through the optic nerve to the brain. Then the brain turns the signals into the images you see.
How does light reflect in the eye?
How do we see what we see? Light reflects off of objects and enters the eyeball through a transparent layer of tissue at the front of the eye called the cornea. The cornea accepts widely divergent light rays and bends them through the pupil – the dark opening in the center of the colored portion of the eye.
What happens when light hits the retina of the eye?
When light of a given wavelength enters the eye and strikes the cones of the retina, a chemical reaction is activated that results in an electrical impulse being sent along nerves to the brain. It is believed that there are three kinds of cones, each sensitive to its own range of wavelengths within the visible light spectrum.
How does light affect the appearance of an object?
Any visible light that strikes the object and becomes reflected or transmitted to our eyes will contribute to the color appearance of that object. So the color is not in the object itself, but in the light that strikes the object and ultimately reaches our eye.
How does light interact with atoms and molecules?
The manner in which visible light interacts with an object is dependent upon the frequency of the light and the nature of the atoms of the object. In this section of Lesson 2 we will discuss how and why light of certain frequencies can be selectively absorbed, reflected or transmitted. Atoms and molecules contain electrons.
What happens when a light wave strikes an object?
We have previously learned that visible light waves consist of a continuous range of wavelengths or frequencies. When a light wave with a single frequency strikes an object, a number of things could happen. The light wave could be absorbed by the object, in which case its energy is converted to heat.