Light Study Guide

1. Light is energy that travels in waves
2. Light speed is the fastest mode of travel.
3. There are 4 major parts of a wave: wavelength, amplitude, peak, trough
4. We can only see visible light
5. Short wavelengths=violet, long wavelengths=red
6. The order of the colors that come from a prism are ROY G BIV: Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, and violet.
7. Light travels in straight lines
8. Light is reflected when it bounces off an object and travels in a different directions. Mirrors reflect light.
9. Light is refracted when it travels through an object and is bent. For example the light bouncing off a pencil sitting in a cup of water.
10. Light is transmitted when it passes through an object
11. Transparent: Light passes through; image is clear
12. Translucent: Some passes through; the image is blurred
13. Opaque=light will not pass through
14. Concave lenses scatter light
15. Convex lenses focus light
16. Light from the sun takes less than 8 ½ minutes to travel the 150 million kilometers to the Earth
17. Galileo Galilei built one of the first telescopes
18. Sir Isaac Newton improved the telescope and was the first to explain how a prism separates light
19. Robert Hooke and Anton van Leeuwenhoek worked with the first microscopes