Light is the basis for the sense of sight and for the perception of colour.
It is electromagnetic radiation of a wavelength that is visible to the human eye.
What is Electromagnatism?
Electromagnetism is the physics of the electromagnetic field, a field which exerts a force on particles with the property of electric charge and which is reciprocally affected by the presence and motion of such particles.
As it turns out, what is thought of as "light" is actually a propagating oscillatory disturbance in the electromagnetic field, i.e., an electromagnetic wave. Different frequencies of oscillation give rise to the different forms of electromagnetic radiation, from radio waves at the lowest frequencies, to visible light at intermediate frequencies, to gamma rays at the highest frequencies.
Explain why Euclid was known as the father of geometry.
Euclid wrote Optica, in which he studied the properties of light. Euclid postulated that light travelled in straight lines and he described the laws of reflection and studied them mathematically.
He is the most prominent mathematician of antiquity best known for his treatise on geometry 'The Elements'. The long lasting nature of 'The Elements' must make Euclid the leading mathematics teacher of all time.
Briefly explain Empedocles philosophy.
Empedocles thought that everything was composed of four elements; fire, air, earth and water. He believed that Aphrodite made the human eye out of the four elements and that she lit the fire in the eye which shone out from the eye making sight possible. If this were true, then one could see during the night just as well as during the day, so Empedocles postulated an interaction between rays from the eyes and rays from a source such as the sun.
Why is Ibn al-Hasan considered to be one of the most distinguishing and prolific mathematicians in the medieval tradition? What were his theories on light, colour and vision?
Ibn al-Hasan is recognized for his experiments on optics, including experiments on lenses, mirrors, refraction, reflection, and the dispersion of light into its constituent colours.
He studied binocular vision and the Moon illusion, described the finite speed of light, and argued that it is made of particles travelling in straight lines. He was also the first to reduce reflected and refracted light rays into vertical and horizontal components, which was a fundamental development in geometric optics.
As he conceptualized the essential principles of pinhole projection from his experiments with the pinhole camera, he considered image inversion to also occur in the eye, and viewed the pupil as being similar to an aperture. Regarding the process of image formation, he incorrectly agreed with Avicenna that the lens was the receptive organ of sight, but correctly hinted at the retina being involved in the process.
Isaac Newton performed some experiements on light and used them to explain that white light was made up of a mixture of colours. How did he do this?
In 1666 Isaac Newton first proposed and demonstrated that white light was made up from a mixture of coloured lights.
If white light is passed through a prism, a band of colours called a spectrum is produced. This splitting of white light into its component colours is called dispersion. The order of the colours within the spectrum is always the same. A second inverted prism placed next to the first can be used to reverse the process, combining the coloured lights to make white light.
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