![]() The more energy you put into your massive particle, the closer it can move to the speed of light, but it must always travel more slowly. If you have mass, the speed of light in a vacuum is still your ultimate speed limit, but rather than being compelled to travel at that speed, it’s instead a limit that you can never attain you can only approach it. This is also the speed that any form of pure radiation, such as gravitational radiation, must travel at, and also the speed, under the laws of relativity, that any massless particle must travel at.īut most particles in the Universe have mass, and as a result, they have to follow slightly different rules. In the vacuum of space, however, light has no choice - irrespective of its wavelength or frequency - but to travel at one speed and one speed only: the speed of light in a vacuum. KES47 / Wikimedia Commons / Public Domain The angle that the incoming light makes with the outgoing light always peaks at an angle of 42 degrees, explaining why rainbows always make the same angle on the sky. off of the back, and at last refracts back into vacuum (or air). When light transitions from vacuum (or air) into a water droplet, it first refracts, then reflects. The frequency of all light remains unchanged, but the wavelength of higher-energy light shortens by a greater amount than lower-energy light.Īs a result, even though all light travels slower through a medium than vacuum, redder light slows by a slightly smaller amount than blue light, leading to many fascinating optical phenomena, such as the existence of rainbows as sunlight breaks into different wavelengths as it passes through water drops and droplets. The more energy you have in your electric and magnetic fields, the greater the effect they experience from passing through a medium. When you pass this light through a dispersive medium like a prism, all of the different wavelengths respond slightly differently. ![]() The bluer wavelengths have more energy, and so their electric and magnetic fields are stronger than the redder wavelength light. In a vacuum, all wavelengths travel at the same speed: frequency multiplied by wavelength equals the speed of light. Longer wavelengths, like red light, possess smaller frequencies, while shorter wavelengths, like blue light, possess larger frequencies. White light - like sunlight - is made up of light of a continuous, wide variety of wavelengths. One spectacular demonstration of this is the refraction of light as it passes through a prism. nature of light is both consistent with and a deeper explanation of the fact that white light can be broken up into differing colors. Schematic animation of a continuous beam of light being dispersed by a prism.
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