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Grade 10Physical Chemistry

Why does light travel in straight lines if it is a wave ? Explain.

Profile image of Arghya Chakrabarty
8 Years agoGrade 10
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1 Answer

Profile image of kavimathi
8 Years ago
is has both wave and particle nature.Light is basically an electromagnetic wave. As we know from the Maxwell's equations that a changing magnetic field produces an electric field and vice versa. Electric fields and magnetic fields in EM wave constantly generate each other, and both are perpendicular to each other. The flow of energy is in the direction perpendicular to both fields, which is direction of the wave.It is probably mandatory at this point to point out that light can't be described as "just" electromagnetic waves either. It has in fact a quantum mechanical nature, which means that it can be both wave-like and particle-like, depending on what you want to measure.