• Question: What is light?

    Asked by Darth to Dervil, Moises, Pramod, Saoirse, Stephen on 15 Nov 2016. This question was also asked by kate.
    • Photo: Stephen Davitt

      Stephen Davitt answered on 15 Nov 2016:

      Light is whats known as an ‘electromagnetic wave’ it is basically a wave of energy, now things get slightly more tricky when we say that light is a particle as well called a ‘photon’.

      So which one is it is it a wave or a particle and this is the greatest thing about light… it’s BOTH, we don’t truly understand what exactly light is! We have experiments that ‘prove’ it is a wave (double slit diffraction) and experiments that ‘prove’ it is a particle (photoelectric effect). This misunderstanding of what light really IS, has puzzled scientists for years and still does, and I think thats kind of cool…

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