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Does light have to travel in a straight line?
Any physics student knows that light travels in a straight line. But now researchers have shown that light can also travel in a curve, without any external influence. Out in space, light rays passing near very massive objects such as stars are seen to travel in curves.
What is light called when it travels in a straight line?
In all of these cases, light is modeled as traveling in straight lines called rays. The word ray comes from mathematics and here means a straight line that originates at some point. It is acceptable to visualize light rays as laser rays (or even science fiction depictions of ray guns).
How does refraction happen when light rays travel in a straight line?
If you shine a beam of light (a bundle of parallel rays) through the air, it will travel in a straight line. When a ray passes from air into glass the direction in which the light ray is travelling changes. The light ray appears to bend as it as it passes through the surface of the glass.
What happens when light hits an object?
When light hits an object, it is transmitted, absorbed, and/or reflected. The light on the left is reflected, the light in the middle is absorbed and the light on the right is transmitted. Any object you can see must at least partially reflect light to your eyes. Objects can ALSO absorb and/or transmit light.
How light travels through an empty space?
Light travels so fast that light emitted from the Sun travels 150 million km to Earth in only about eight and a half minutes. However, when light travels in matter, it interacts with the atoms and molecules in the material and slows down. As a result, light travels fastest in empty space, and travels slowest in solids.
What can light not travel through?
In some materials, such as metal, the atoms absorb some of the photons so light does not pass through them. These materials are opaque. In other materials, such as glass, the atoms cannot absorb the photons and light passes through them. These materials are transparent.
What happens when light hits an object that it Cannot pass through?
Materials like frosted glass and some plastics are called translucent. When light strikes translucent materials, only some of the light passes through them. The light does not pass directly through the materials. Most of the light is either reflected by the object or absorbed and converted to thermal energy.