Referring to the electromagnetic spectrum:a.Which has a longer wavelength: green light or yellow light? b.Which has a higher frequency: an x-ray or a microwave? c.Which travels at a greater speed: ultraviolet light or infrared light? thank you
a) remember this for light. ROY G BIV if using this, yellow has longer wavelength. R=Red = long V = Violet = short. b) X-ray c) neither, both light.
when answering these questions it's important to remember this relationship: E = h X nu, where nu is the frequency of the light since the speed of light is c (a constant) we can relate the wavelength of light to the frequency through the speed of light lambda (wavelength) = c / nu also, let's think about the EM spectrum, it goes from highest to lowest energy: gamma, x-ray, UV, Vis, IR, micro, radio that means that blue light is the highest energy visible light, and red light is the lowest energy visible light. So, since the rainbow goes from purple to blue, green, yellow, orange, finally to red, then green light is of higher energy - and from the equation above we know that the frequency of the light is directly related to energy - so the higher the energy of that light, the higher the frequency. That means green has a higher frequency than yellow. X-rays have much higher frequencies that microwaves. And all light travels at the same speed - c :)
