Visible light

Article

Visible light is the portion of the electromagnetic spectrum detected by the human eye. It is commonly assigned wavelengths of approximately 380 to 750 nanometres, although the exact limits depend on sensitivity and convention.

Shorter visible wavelengths are perceived as violet and blue, while longer wavelengths are perceived as orange and red. White light contains a mixture of wavelengths that can be separated by a prism or diffraction grating.

Visible light is produced by thermal radiation, atomic and molecular transitions, fluorescence, luminescence, and electronic devices. Its interaction with matter produces reflection, absorption, refraction, scattering, colour, and transparency.

It supports vision, photosynthesis, microscopy, imaging, display technology, illumination, optical communication, and spectroscopy. Earth's atmosphere has a strong transmission window across much of the visible range.

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• Source / publisher: Wikipedia
• URL type: WWW
• Credits: Wikipedia
• URL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visible_light