I know this is probably a stupid one here.. But like, isn’t light just photons bouncing around? My lightbulb is firing these photons out when it’s switched on but presumably it’s not sucking them back in when it’s off?
So where da light go?
Also shouldn’t it get brighter the longer the light source is on as there’s more photons?
Where are they all going?
In: Physics
It depends on what materials you have around you. Some amount of light will be reflected off a surface, and that is what allows you to see that object. You see that fraction of the light that reflected, and went exactly in the direction of your eye. Some amount of light will be transmitted through a surface, and that is what allows people outside to see the light in your room. These processes are insanely fast though, so once the bulb is off, they stop almost instantaneously. Some amount of light will be absorbed into surfaces in the form of heat. These are the waves that are not enough energy to excite an electron, but are enough to increase molecular vibrations. If you have any glow-in-the-dark surfaces lying around, a much slower process known as phosphorescence may occur for a long while after. The molecules in these materials have an excited state that is much more stable than those of the reflective surfaces. So they become weak emitters of light themselves, decaying only as quickly as they are allowed to return to ground state.
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