Differences between colors

Usage examples of wavelengths.

Generally it will absorb some wavelengths of light to a greater extent than others, and the light it reflects or transmits will then be weighted in favor of the wavelengths it does not absorb.

High-pitched sounds with short wavelengths and high frequencies crossed it near the oval window.

The wavelengths of the ordinary sounds about us is in the neighborhood of a yard, which means that sound can travel around comers and about the average household obstacle.

An automobile is large enough to reflect the wavelengths of some of our engine noises but a fireplug is not.

A twig or an insect will tend to reflect such short wavelengths, and the bat, whose squeaks are of excessively short duration, will catch the faint echo between squeaks.

In the open air men now make use of microwaves (a form of light waves with wavelengths in the range of those of ultrasonic sound) for the same purpose.

The very shortest wavelengths of audible sound are in the neighborhood of half an inch, and they already show considerable powers of straight-line travel.

But we sense different wavelengths, as I shall explain later in the chapter, as different colors, so when we see the light-sensitive substance by the light it transmits or reflects we see it as colored.

As I shall explain shortly, specific colors involve only a portion of the range of wavelengths of light to which the eye is sensitive.

The human eye can detect light with wavelengths as short as 3800 A and as long as 7600 A.

At wavelengths shorter than 3800 A there are, progressing down the scale, ultraviolet rays, X-rays, and gamma rays.

At wavelengths above 7600 A there are, progressing up the scale, infrared rays, microwaves, and radio waves.

The entire range of wavelengths is commonly referred to as electromagnetic radiation because they originate in accelerating electric charges with which both electric and magnetic fields are associated.

Ordinary sunlight is a mixture of all the wavelengths of visible light.

The different wavelengths are refracted by characteristic amounts, the shortest wavelengths exhibiting the highest refraction, and longer and longer wavelengths refracting progressively less and less.