Hello it’s me again. In this post I will be talking all about the unit we did in science class about light!

 

How Is Light A Wave?

 

The first thing we did in this unit was prove to our teacher that light is a wave. I partnered up with Jordyn and we had to prove to our teacher in anyway we could that light is a wave. Jordyn and I angled two plane or flat mirrors like the picture below, then we shone a light on the first mirror and watched as it reflected off the other mirror. When it reflected off the other mirror, it came out at the same angle as the first ray of light (incident ray), and shone on to our classroom ceiling. Once we did this we realized that we only needed one mirror to do this because since light is a wave, it reflects off the mirror like a wave. 

 

 

How Is Light A Particle & Why Does Light Travel In Straight Lines

 

Light has been proven to be a particle and a wave. But the question is, how?

We did a lab on how light can act as both a particle and a wave, we learned the three laws of light, how light moves in straight lines and that light bounces off reflective surfaces. 

See the three laws of light in the diagram below.

 

You can see in the diagram above that one of the laws is when the ray goes from the object to the reflective surface and through the focal point, another law is when the ray goes from the object through the focal point and then reflects off of the reflective surface, the final law is when the light ray goes straight from the object and through the centre of curvature.

Those are all three main laws of traveling light rays.

 

 

In this unit of light we did a lab where we looked at the way light reflects. We did worksheets where we had to draw ray diagrams and figure out how they would look using the three laws of light. We did many worksheets, I loved the ones of ray diagrams and how we had to figure out where the image will appear. We did this with concave, convex and plain lenses (flat lenses). 

Here are some of the photos from our lenses lab below.

 

   

 

Outdoor Experiments

 

One of the experiments we did with Ms. Klausen was where we got to go outside with a huge concave mirror on a hot and sunny day. Then we used a ripped piece of a girl guide cookie box and burnt it. We did this by aiming the big concave mirror at the sun and when the light beam hit the mirror, it bounced off (since it’s a reflective surface) and hit the piece of cardboard. The piece of cardboard never blew up into flames like I had hoped. However It did start to smoulder and the area got hot around it, which was pretty cool! Learning And doing things outside the classroom like that is always fun, I really enjoyed doing that activity.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The History Of Light

 

Light has been a huge part of humans scientific worldview for a very long time. Long before our time, when people were discovering the incredible universe of light. People started to see that light was everywhere and life depended on it. Humans aren’t the only ones that depend on light to survive, there is a whole universe of living organisms that use, make and depend on light to survive.

There was an Islam scholar named Ibn-al Haytham who was famous for an experiment he named the camera obscurer which is Latin for dark chamber. The camera obscurer was an invention with light that was used back then to produce images and photos but lead to the revolutionary invention of photography. Photography has developed and changed but we still use and see it today in so many different ways.

 

 

Why Are Humans Drawn To Light?

 

Light. When you think of light for a second it doesn’t seem like much. The first thought I have when I think of light is the light hanging in my bedroom. Not so interesting. If someone were to tell me that light is so incredible, and that was the first thought I had, I would have told that person they were crazy. However after this class, this unit and this year, I have been given a greater understanding of light and the world we live in. Even this unit about light has taught me so much and I have taken many amazing things away from it. 

 

 

To answer the earlier question. I believe that humans are attracted to light because it’s beautiful. Light is part of our universe and the universe is beautiful!