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Most objects do not reflect or transmit light specularly and to some degree scatters the incoming light, which is called glossiness. Surface scatterance is caused by the surface roughness of the reflecting surfaces, and internal scatterance is caused by the difference of refractive index between the particles and medium inside the object.
Later experiments showed that these light-quanta also carry momentum and, thus, can be considered particles: The photon concept was born, leading to a deeper understanding of the electric and magnetic fields themselves. The Maxwell wave theory, however, does not account for all properties of light.
By definition, visible light is the part of the EM spectrum the human eye is the most sensitive to. Visible light (and near-infrared light) is typically absorbed and emitted by electrons in molecules and atoms that move from one energy level to another. This action allows the chemical mechanisms that underlie human vision and plant photosynthesis.
The chemical elements are distinguished from each other by the number of protons that are in their atoms. For example, any atom that contains 11 protons is sodium, and any atom that contains 29 protons is copper. Atoms with the same number of protons but a different number of neutrons are called isotopes of the same element. Atoms are extremely ...
The frequencies of light that an atom can emit are dependent on states the electrons can be in. When excited, an electron moves to a higher energy level or orbital. When the electron falls back to its ground level the light is emitted. Emission spectrum of hydrogen. The above picture shows the visible light emission spectrum for hydrogen. If ...
This definition goes beyond atoms and molecules, however, to include substances made from these building blocks that are not simply atoms or molecules, for example electron beams in an old cathode ray tube television, or white dwarf matter—typically, carbon and oxygen nuclei in a sea of degenerate electrons. At a microscopic level, the ...
The properties of quantized confined photon states in optical micro- and nanocavities are very similar to those of confined electron states in atoms. [6] Owing to this similarity, optical microcavities can be termed 'photonic atoms'. Taking this analogy even further, a cluster of several mutually-coupled photonic atoms forms a photonic molecule ...
The spectrum does not contain all the colors that the human visual system can distinguish. Unsaturated colors such as pink, or purple variations like magenta, for example, are absent because they can only be made from a mix of multiple wavelengths. Colors containing only one wavelength are also called pure colors or spectral colors. [8] [9]