Summary:
- Waves are characterized by their repetitive motion.
- A wave with a short wavelength has a high frequency because more waves pass a given point in a certain amount of time.
- Wavelength and frequency are therefore inversely related.
- As the wavelength of a wave increases, its frequency decreases.
- For the relationship to hold mathematically, if the speed of light is used in m/s, the wavelength must be in meters and the frequency in Hertz.
- For example, the color orange within the visible light spectrum has a wavelength of about 620 nm.
- What is the frequency of orange light?