Wavelength and Frequency

[between3and26characterslon]

We are all familiar with wavelength and frequency but are we really? What is a photon doing that gives it these qualities. I remember when I was at school seeing light represented as a squiggly line on a blackboard. I never gave it much thought, just accepted it, but does light actually bob up and down in a wave as it travels along?

 

This just recently struck me as absurd, surely light would pulsate equally in all directions and the squiggly line is a 2D reprensentation of its 3D nature. Then I wondered how polarising lenses work and I'm back at squiggly lines again (stop me if I'm getting too technical).

 

So what is frequency and wavelength?

[ewmon]

Light. One form of electro-magnetic radiation (other EMR: radio waves, microwaves, infrared, ultraviolet, x rays, gamma rays, etc), so-called because it exhibits electrical and magnetic fields that relate to one another and whose field strengths oscillate at a certain rate (described as "frequency"), and thus, as they travel at or near the speed of light, go through cycles over the distances traveled (described as "wavelength").

[swansont]

The squiggly line represents a wave; what is oscillating is the electric and magnetic field, as ewmon has noted. When you see the sine wave drawing, what is represented is the strength and direction of that field, not the trajectory of the photon. Linearly polarized light has the same orientation of the field. Elliptically polarized light has the same rotation of the field direction. Polarizers work by suppressing the field in one direction.