what is light?

Ever since mankind was first exposed to sunshine, she has been aware of its presence. Even at night, the sun hits the moon, creating indirect exposure. Today, we have become accustomed to multiple variations of light, from different sources, around the clock. Still most are not aware of what this phenomenon really is, or where it comes from. Well, light is simply electromagnetic rays that contain the full spectrum from radio waves to gamma rays. Well, simply may be an understatement.

When we talk about everyday light we are normally referring to what the eye can see, which is 380nm-800nm, known as visible light. When rays within this range hit the nerve cells of the eye (the retina) we experience this as light. We can the split these nerve cells into cones and rods where rods are very light sensitive and therefore important to our night vision, whilst cones help us see colour and help focus.

Many factors affect how we experience light, such as flux, colour temperature and colour.
Flux is the total amount of visual light and is measured in Lumen. Colour temperature is measured in Kelvin, and the higher the Kelvin, the colder the light. And vice versa. We generally prefer a warmer light at home, for coziness, and a slightly colder light at work, for correctness. Colour is simply an important factor as to how the light reproduces accurate colours. This is ranked on a scale from 0-100 Ra, where 100 is perfect colour accuracy.

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