Year 8 Physics Light Waves

Science Work
booklet
Year 8
Physics
Year 8 Physics Light Waves

Instructions
o Read the information pages. Make notes
and highlight key information and
keywords
o Complete the activity sheet using the
information pages to help you.
o Mark your own work before moving onto
the next task. Correct any wrong answers.
o Once you have completed the tasks, try
the educake your teacher has set you. Aim
for 60%!
o Then try the assessed piece of work and
hand this in to your teacher to review

Try your best and do not worry if you find

anything in this booklet hard. We can review
it together when you are back in lessons!
Year 8 Physics Light Waves

Recap Waves Features:

Year 8 Physics Light Waves

Try these questions:

1 The diagrams show a Slinky spring being used to model different
kinds of wave. Label the diagrams using words from the box. You can
use each word once, more than once, or not at all.

amplitude energy frequency longitudinal

particles period transverse wavelength

a _____________________ wave

b _____________________ wave
Year 8 Physics Light Waves

Challenge:
Five transverse waves measure 15 cm in total and pass a point in 1 s. It has
distance of 10cm between its peak and trough.
a) What is the wavelength? ____________ cm
b) What is the frequency? ___________ Hz
c) What is the amplitude? ___________cm

Answers (SELF ASSESS YOU WORK):

2 The diagrams show a Slinky spring being used to model different
kinds of wave. Label the diagrams using words from the box. You can
use each word once, more than once, or not at all.

amplitude energy frequency longitudinal

particles period transverse wavelength

c _____________________ wave
Year 8 Physics Light Waves

d _____________________ wave

Challenge:
Five transverse waves measure 15 cm in total and pass a point in 1 s. It has
distance of 10cm between its peak and trough.
d) What is the wavelength? ____________ cm
e) What is the frequency? ___________ Hz
f) What is the amplitude? ___________cm
Year 8 Physics Light Waves

1. How does light Travel?

Light travels in straight lines in all directions, so if you have to represent a

ray of light in a drawing, always use a ruler.

Unlike sound waves, light waves can travel through a vacuum (empty
space). They do not need a substance to travel through, but they can travel
through transparent and translucent substances.

The speed of light

Light travels extremely
quickly. Its maximum speed
is approximately
300,000,000 m/s, when it
travels through a vacuum. It
takes 8.3 minutes for light
to reach Earth from the Sun!

The very large difference between the speed of light in air (almost
300,000,000 m/s) and the speed of sound in air (343 m/s) explains why you:

• see lightning before you hear it

• see a firework explode before you hear it
• see a distant door slam before you hear it
Year 8 Physics Light Waves

2. Reflection

The law of reflection

When light reaches a mirror, it reflects off the surface of the mirror:

the incident ray is the light going

towards the mirror
the reflected ray is the light coming
away from the mirror
A ray diagram showing angle of
incidence and angle of reflection.

A ray diagram for reflection at a

mirror. In the ray diagram:

• the hatched vertical line on the right represents the mirror

• the dashed line is called the normal, drawn at 90° to the surface of
the mirror
• the angle of incidence, i, is the angle between the normal and
incident ray
• the angle of reflection, r, is the angle between the normal and
reflected ray
Year 8 Physics Light Waves

The law of reflection states that the angle of incidence equals the angle of
reflection, i = r. It works for any angle. For example:

the angle of reflection is 30° if the angle of incidence is 30°

the angle of reflection is 90° if the angle of incidence is 90°

Questions
Year 8 Physics Light Waves
Year 8 Physics Light Waves

Answer (self-assess):
 Year 8 Physics Light Waves

3. Refraction

Light waves change speed when they pass across the boundary between two
substances with a different density, such as air and glass. This causes them to
change direction, an effect called refraction.

At the boundary between two transparent substances:

• the light slows down going into a denser substance, and the ray bends
towards the normal
• the light speeds up going into a less dense substance, and the ray bends
away from the normal
 Year 8 Physics Light Waves

Questions:
 Year 8 Physics Light Waves

Answers (self-assess):

Now try this Harder Question:

Year 8 Physics Light Waves

Self-Assess Your Answer:

Light as a Transverse Wave:

The intensity of a light source is how bright or dim it is. Looking at the image we can
see that this is related to amplitude. We can say the following relationship is true:
The more intense the light the larger the amplitude of the wave.
Year 8 Physics Light Waves

As we get further away from a light source it gets less intense. Imagine holding a
torch right in front of your eyes, it would be very bright and intense, now imagine
slowly taking that torch further and further away, It would get less intense and appear
to be dimming.
This is because the light wave spread out as they get further from a source:

In terms of the amplitude we can think of it as slowly decreasing with distance:

IMPORTANT: The light does not get weaker. Light can travel for an infinite distance
(forever), so it does not fade because it is to far for it to travel. It only loses
intensity because the light wave spread out.
Year 8 Physics Light Waves

Light comes in many different wavelengths (in fact for any number you can think of,
there will be a wavelength of light that exists at that size).
There is a small part of these wavelength that our eyes are able to detect (see). We
call this the visible spectrum.

ROY G B I V
It is in order Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo and Violet. The smallest
wavelengths of light are violet and the largest are red:

But remember frequency is also related to wavelength – a high frequency means a

short wavelength and a low frequency means a long wavelength. This means red is
the lowest frequency light and violet is the highest frequency.
Year 8 Physics Light Waves

But remember we said for every number we could think of there would be a
wavelength of light that existed. It cant stop at the ends of the visible spectrum – it
must go on forever!
Visible light is a small part of a bigger collection of light waves we call the
electromagnetic spectrum:
Year 8 Physics Light Waves
Year 8 Physics Light Waves
Year 8 Physics Light Waves
Year 8 Physics Light Waves

How do we see colour?

Our eyes contain special cells called cones that come in three types Red, Green and
Blue. This allows us to see the primary colours of light:

If our red and green cone both receive stimulation from a wavelength of light then
our brain interprets this as somewhere in between them on the spectrum
(Orange/Yellow). The same is true when Green or Blue Light is detected:

When Red and Blue are detected together there is no colour to suggest on the
spectrum, so our brain has to ‘make up’ a colour! We call this magenta (or pink).

Alongside the light blue colour called Cyan and

Yellow, Magenta makes up the secondary
colours of visible light. When all the colours
are mixed together they make white light:
Year 8 Physics Light Waves

Read this information on How We see different colours:

Year 8 Physics Light Waves

Now Try these Questions:

Year 8 Physics Light Waves
Year 8 Physics Light Waves
Year 8 Physics Light Waves

Self Asses your Work: