Thursday, October 21, 2010

October 21, 2010

Our hypothesis from yesterday was to answer why light bends. We realized that it bends because the light slows down. Another was our hypothesis from the homework from last night. It was asking how light will bend when it goes from less dense to more dense and more dense to less dense. In class today, we discovered the light will bend towards the normal line when it goes from more density to less density. When it is less to more, the light will slow down and it will bend towards the normal line.

In class, we also observed a container full of water, with playing cards taped to the sides. The bottom had a card, but from above looking down into the container you could see it. When you bend down and look from the side, it was not seen. The 3 of 4 sides had cards too. 2 sides had 2 cards, and 1 side only had 1. When you looked at 2 of the cards, you could only see 1/2 of it at some angles, but looking from the outside, the whole card was visible. You also couldn't see the cards from the outside, on the opposite side of the container.

After that observation was finished, we discovered the meaning of photon. Photon is the 2 ways that light can act. The first way is when light bounces off of a surface. This is called reflection. The other way, refraction, is when light bends. The Particle of Light is another meaning for reflection. It is like when we discovered the mirror experiment last week. The Wave Model of Light is also like refraction. This is the relation of when light slows down or speeds up.

We decided to make the Wave Model. So, we took a long, spring-like slinky and swung it, It looked like this (I could not find a good picture, but this is what was closest):






1 wave =

Refraction:

FAST: If light speeds up, it will look like this:

The wave legnths are closer together.

SLOW: If the light slows down, it will look like this:

The wave legnths are further apart.
Hypothesis of the day: Light moves through its speed and changes.
-A.L.

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