The intuitive notion that light travels in a straight line seems to
contradict what we have learnt in Chapter 8, that light is an
electromagnetic wave of wavelength belonging to the visible part of the
spectrum How to reconcile the two facts The answer is that the
wavelength of light is very small compared to the size of ordinary objects
that we encounter commonly (generally of the order of a few cm or larger) In this situation, as you will learn in Chapter 10, a light wave can be
considered to travel from one point to another, along a straight line joining
Rationalised 2023-24
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FIGURE 9