The Electromagnetic Spectrum
Light, Sound and Waves
Seeing and lighting
Physics Narrative
for 11-14
Starting out in thinking about seeing and light
Light travels from source to detector. Sources are luminous objects. Our eye is a detector that can see things only when light travels from the source to the detector. We can also see non-luminous objects when light reflects from their surfaces and arrives at the eye.
Not all the light emitted from the source reaches the detector:
- some will head off in other directions
- some will be absorbed
- some will be scattered
But all of the light continues to travel until it is absorbed, somewhere.
