KEY CONCEPT: Light produces both an electric field and a magnetic field

What is a Photon? 

• Electric field oscillations connect photons to waves and gives ​frequency and wavelength, as well as magnetic field oscillations and the energy measurement of the photon

  • Combining all this gives us electromagnetic ​radiation! 

    • Electromagnetic radiation is LIGHT! ​

Depending on how you measure light, it may act like a wave or act like a particle

The word "photon" represents the particle natrure of light 

There is also an electric field that we can portray as a constantly oscillating vector above and below the photon 

• Because of these oscillations, light is also generating a wave​, which gives light its wave character (which we can portray as a trace)

  • But the wave only really exists where it is being generated by the oscillating field ​

A pure color is a single wavelength of light with a.specific frequency 

• i.e. a red laser emits 650 nm, a green laser at 532 nm​

  • The green oscillates more frequently per unit time --> has a higher frequency = shorter wavelengt

  • The pure red light of most red laser pointers oscillates at 4.6 x 10^14 oscillations per second 

    • 4.6 x 10^14 Hertz =

    • 4.6 x 10^14 cycles per second =

    • the frequency ​

There is a direct mathematical relationship between the number of electric field oscillations and the photon's energy

• The energy of a single photon is the number of electric field oscillations and the photon's energy​

  • Through math, we can see that the green light has a higher energy that red, corresponding exactly to the number of oscillations

Any moving electric field produces a perpendicular magnetic field 

This is why light is called electro-magnetic radiation! 

• The fact that light produces both an electric field and a magnetic field was originally deduced by physicist James Maxwell in 1868. ​