The spectrum electromagnetic;
The light waves e’er peripatetic
With wide-ranging energies,
Inspiring reveries:
Exploring, insightful, aesthetic.
The 4 April 2024 Twitter limerick commemorated another common theme seen in multiple National Poetry Writing Months: that of electromagnetic radiation (light) and its myriad roles in scientific explorations and creative work. This poem sums up a few aspects of light’s behavior as described by scientists and artists.
“The spectrum electromagnetic; /
The light waves e’er peripatetic /
With wide-ranging energies…”
What we consider typically as light is more precisely characterized as visible light: the ROYGBIV rainbow; light with a wavelength range of 400-750 nm. It is just one part of the entire electromagnetic spectrum, which ranges from long-wavelength, low-energy radio waves to short-wavelength, high-energy gamma rays.
Pertinent calculations and vocabulary involving light arise early in General Chemistry and General Physics. One of the earliest examples of one of the most frustrating themes of introductory scientific coursework– that the language can be frustratingly jargon-heavy in the service of precision– is that electromagnetic radiation (EMR) simply means light, just in a more encompassing, “wide-ranging” way.
Light exhibits wave-particle duality, but many properties of light are more easily understood via the wave model, so that light could be defined in terms of its wavelength, frequency, and energy. Light has a constant speed of 3.00 x 108 meters per second; it is “e’er peripatetic.”
“Inspiring reveries: /
Exploring, insightful, aesthetic.”
Keats famously wrote about the tendency of natural philosophy (science) to “unweave the rainbow”; while I read that action as having both benefits and challenges, it is undeniable that the first three limerick lines here are information-dense. The study of light has been a historical and epic saga for scientists through the centuries, but the resulting, sometimes-dry language is just one aspect of light’s description and behavior.
The final two lines allude to a few of the ways in which it is possible to experience and discuss light from artistic perspectives: the beauty of a sunrise or sunset; the warm glow of a candle; a metaphorical flash of illumination.
Chemphasis 