Contents of this post
Notes, tips, and other help
Videos
Waves review video, with introduction to electromagnetic waves
The equation E=hf you do not need to know, but the relationship shown by the wave (the higher the frequency, the higher the energy) you should understand conceptually.
How is the speed of light measured?
This video is a bit long, but it explores how we determined the speed of light (as shown on page 534 of your textbook). This embeded video is set to start with how they first measured the speed of light. The rest of the video is optional, but available for those who might be interested.
Physics girl describes electromagnetic waves
Minute Physics
These two one-minute videos demonstrate the “Wave or Particle” discussion presented on page 536.
In the end, however, we don’t say electromagnetic waves are waves or particles: They are simply electromagnetic radiation, which sometimes acts like a wave and sometimes like a particle. It’s sort of like asking if water is a solid or a liquid: In different situations it can be a solid, but in others it’s a liquid.
Online resources
ck-12 Light waves simulation
This simulation offers you plenty of options to investigate electromagnetic waves. This should help with understanding the chapter.
PhET simulation
PhET provides a great simulation to experiment with radio waves and electronmagnetic fields. This version runs with Java only, so it won’t run on phones. If Java is not installed on your computer, and you wish to install it, instructions are here for Macs and Windows.
| Click to Run |