• Question: how does light travel?

    Asked by mollieet to Mike, Pip, Tianfu, Tim, Tom on 28 Jun 2012.
    • Photo: Tom Lister

      Tom Lister answered on 28 Jun 2012:

      That is really excellent question. I really don’t have a good answer, other than it seems to push itself along through space but travels more slowly through a as it makes anything with an electric or magnetic charge wobble.

      People will tell you that you can think of it like a ball, bouncing around, or a wave wriggling along, but I’m not sure if these really answer the question.

    • Photo: Tim Stephens

      Tim Stephens answered on 28 Jun 2012:

      As Tom says, it’s an electromagnetic wave which moves through space in much the same way as waves move over the surface of water. This means that you can think of it as a wave which transfers energy from its source out into space.

      There’s actually a _lot_ of complicated maths to describe how light travels, but I don’t remember enough of it to explain it for you in a nice simple (if you did Physics at University, you’d probably get a whole lecture course just about that).

Comments