Somebody give me a thorough definition of light. I know the basics about it, but i want to know more. Light is a particle traveling in a wave, right? Why is it limited to traveling in that sine wave. Is light just energy passing through particles in space, kind of like the wave in the oceans? Or is it one single particle. If so, where does this come from?

What about Sound waves too. Are they energy traveling through particles in space. Why are they also limited traveling in a sine wave.

There are two types of wave; longitudinal and transverse, the second travels like the sine wave you described where as longitudinal waves consist of small bursts of compression radiating in a linear fashion through whatever medium. Sound is not sine/transverse but longitudinal, you may be talking about how we depict it on an osciloscope, but thats jsut so we can see characteristics such as frequency and volume visibly. Ripples on water are transverse, the same is true for light waves.

Light waves are electromagnetic waves, which means they have an electric and magnetic component. Roughly speaking a moving magnetic charge creates an electric field, dynamos work on this principle. Similarly an electric charge in motion creates a magnetic field, through this motors work. The two forces are inseperatable. Light is created when a charged particle such as an electron loses some energy and jumps down to a lower energy state (most comonly an orbit closer to its respective neucleus) this movement of electric charge facilitates the release of this energy in the form of a magnetic field. The important thig to understand is that the two forces induce each other in a perpendicular fashion, so that as this magnetism moves away from its originating particle at a right angle it creates an electric field moving away at a 90 degrees from itself. This repeats, each force generating the other perpendicular to itself, this action occurs at the speed of light. So if you were to imagine a single photon of light it would be infact two sine/transverse waves inter-twined at right angles along a single straight path.

So light is not a particle but often behaves like one because it comes in 'packets' called photons, each photon is basically one of these self-perpetuating rays as described above. Light comes in no smaller quantum, but photons themselves vary in terms of energy, depending on frequency and other factors.

I just remembered the most important point, light therefore needs no medium, for a long time luminiferous ethers were hypothesised, it seemed that all other forces require a medium to travel along, but not light. I sort of think of it as unfolding its own medium before itself, although analogously this is most likely inaccurate.

Thank you for your time. That was exactly what I wanted to know.

Somebody give me a thorough definition of light.

Light is an electromagnetic wave whose wavelength corresponds to a values within a specific range. That range is defined by what the eye can see.

That's the classical definition of light. The quantum definition is that light is a quantum of electromagnetic energy whose values are in the visible spectrum.

An electromagnetic wave is not limited to traveling in sine waves. It is also true that EM waves can have longitudinal components. That's typically found in things like waveguides for EM waves having microwave frequencies.

Pete

Light is created when a charged particle such as an electron loses some energy and jumps down to a lower energy state (most comonly an orbit closer to its respective neucleus) ...

That is but one way that light is created. There are several ways in which light can be created. One way is as you stated. Other examples are synchrotrons (radiation from accelerating charges) can produce radiation in the visible spectrum. Another way is electron-positron annihilation as viewed from an inertial frame in which one of the photons produced has an frequency in the visible spectrum.

Pete

I have another stupid noob question. I understand all this about light, but what about radio waves?

Or perhaps I want to say, how do we embed signals into light waves such that we can tune our radio to such a frequency and decode them?

I have another stupid noob question. I understand all this about light, but what about radio waves?

Or perhaps I want to say, how do we embed signals into light waves such that we can tune our radio to such a frequency and decode them?

We modulate them by either varying their amplitude (AM) or frequency from the center frequency (FM).

http://www.lighttheory.com

OOOH! I allways describe light to people in terms of a Moray pattern, the same way audio polyphonic signals can be broken down into their basic waves, and its only an interaction between frequencies that generate the ideal conditions, for what we percieve as visible light.....