The energy required to strip an electron from an atom is called the ionization energy. A quantum of electromagnetic energy having both particle and wave properties. A photon has no charge or mass but possesses momentum and energy. This camera uses the principle of straight-traveling lightpaths and reversibility of lightpaths to form images on a screen or film. Click the Back button on your browser to Exit the Glossary polarize To align something in one direction or another.
Natural light is a combination of two polarization states.
A polarizer can be used to block out one of the polarization states and allowing the other to pass. Polaroid sunglasses are one example of this phenomenon. A device used to break light into its component wavelengths. This is usually a triangular piece of glass through which light can pass and get dispersed. Isaac Newton first used a prism to see a spectrum of colors in 1672.