Sources and Properties
This is what we call an object that makes its own light.
What is an emitter (or “emits light”)?
Light is not a type of matter but a type of what?
What is a wave (electromagnetic wave)?
If light strikes a mirror and bounces back to your eye, this process is called what?
What is reflection?
White light is best described as what?
What is light that contains a combination of many different wavelengths?
Which everyday example shows light travels faster than sound?
What is seeing lightning before hearing thunder?
Name one example listed in the lesson that is a light source used in everyday life.
What is a traffic light? (or the Sun)
Which unit is used to measure light wavelength in the lesson?
What is nanometers (nm)?
Transmission means what about light and a material?
What is light passes through a material?
Why does a blue translucent glass appear blue?
What is it transmits mostly blue wavelengths and absorbs or blocks others?
Which of these is NOT an electromagnetic wave listed in the lesson: infrared, gamma rays, sound waves, ultraviolet?
What is sound waves?
The lesson says brightness is a person’s perception of intensity. Give one reason two people might rate the same light differently.
What is that one person’s eyes may be more sensitive than another’s?
Put these electromagnetic waves in order from lowest energy (longest wavelength) to highest energy (shortest wavelength): radio, visible, gamma.
What is radio → visible → gamma rays?
Which material type does not allow light to pass through?
What is opaque?
Which cells in the retina detect color?
What are cone cells?
Name the primary colors of light used when mixing colored light (not pigments).
What is red, green, blue?
Define “vacuum” as used when describing how light reaches Earth.
What is space that contains no matter?
Which color of visible light has the shortest wavelength and bends (refracts) the most through a prism?
What is violet?
Describe a short model statement (one or two sentences) that explains how light behaves when it encounters a boundary between two transparent materials (like air to glass).
What is light travels in straight lines in a medium but changes direction (refracts) at the boundary between two transparent materials because the speed of light changes in different media?
If an object is illuminated only by red light, what will a green shirt most likely look like?
What is black or very dark?
During refraction in the eye, which structure bends incoming light first?
What is the cornea (and then the lens)?
Explain why light from the Sun usually appears much more intense than light from a flashlight, using energy and distance ideas from the lesson.
What is the Sun emits far more energy (much greater output) and effectively is closer in angular size, so its emitted energy reaching Earth is much larger than a small flashlight’s output?
State why shorter wavelengths generally have higher frequencies and how that relates to energy (one sentence).
What is waves with shorter wavelengths have higher frequencies, and higher frequency corresponds to higher energy.
Describe a short model statement (one or two sentences) that explains how light behaves when it encounters a boundary between two transparent materials (like air to glass).
What is light travels in straight lines in a medium but changes direction (refracts) at the boundary between two transparent materials because the speed of light changes in different media?
Explain why mixing many pigments usually makes a darker color (one sentence referring to wavelengths).
What is different pigments absorb different wavelengths so combining pigments causes more wavelengths to be absorbed, leaving less light reflected and making the mixture darker?
Use the wave model idea from the standards: write one sentence connecting wavelength, color, and how a prism separates white light.
What is white light contains many wavelengths (colors), and because different wavelengths bend by different amounts when passing through a prism, the prism separates the light into its component colors.