EYE AND ITS VISION-BASIC CLINICAL SCIENCES
Both Light and Sound Have Oscillating Waves
| Velocity | Travels Through Vacuum? | Wavelength | Frequency | |
| Light | 186,000 miles/sec (300,000 km/sec) in vacuum |
Yes | 400-700 nm | 4 X 10^14 to 7 X 10 ^14 cycles/sec |
| Sound | About 700 mph (about 340 m/sec) (1 mile per 5 seconds) in air |
No | .02 to 20 meters | 20-20,000 cycles/sec |
- Sound and light are waves in which the amplitude oscillates with time
- For pure tones or colors the oscillation is a sine wave with a fixed wavelength and frequency
- The wavelength is the distance between 2 peaks of the wave