Help with 3rd year assignment on light!

Oblef

Hello all. I'm in my 3rd and final year in high school and the big 3rd year paper is coming up. I'm writing in physics (and history) and I have about light. The specific topic isn't decided yet and therefore I need some books to help me decide. This is were you come into the picture.

I need some good and very descriptive books concerning everything that has to do with light, electromagnetic waves/light waves, light as a particle, colours and why different things emit light, such as light bulbs and fluorescent light tubes.

Any of you got any good titles of authors for me to order from the library? It needs to be descriptive rather than mathematical, cause I need to understand the physical phenomenons. Thank you very much.


Hope you can help - yours sincerely Oblef :)

Oblef

Any body?

berkeman

The wikipedia.org entry for light is a good place to start:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light

Then follow some of the related links out of the article. That should get you started. If you have specific questions as you read along, feel free to ping us with them. Have fun!

BTW, only 3 years of high school? Did you just ace your classes to graduate a year early, or are you in a country where high school is routinely 3 years (it's 4 years here in the US)?

Oblef

I come from Denmark. and there is 9 years of basic school + 1 year of kindergarten school. Then there are different kind of high school, the longest is called STX and is 3 years.

After I graduate I will study at the Niels Bohr institute in Copenhagen. You probably know Niels Bohr, this is his institute :)

Thank you, I'll ask questions if I run into trouble.

Oblef

Alright, I've got a bit more focused now.

I'm writing about the different interpretations/conceptions/perceptions of light throughout time. Any body know any literature on this subject? The old Greeks, Indians, medieval alchemist or Newtonian or modern conceptions?