
What is the intensity of a traveling plane electromagnetic wave if is

Important Questions on Electromagnetic Waves

Figure depicts a simplistic optical fiber: a plastic core is surrounded by a plastic sheath A light ray is incident on one end of the fiber at angle The ray is to undergo total internal reflection at point where it encounters the core-sheath boundary. (Thus there is no loss of light through that boundary.) What is the maximum value of that allows total internal reflection at



Frank D. Drake, an investigator in the SETI (Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence) program, once said that the large radio telescope in Arecibo, Puerto Rico in figure "can detect a signal which lays down on the entire surface of the earth, a power of only one ." What is the power that would be received by the Arecibo antenna for such a signal? The antenna diameter is . What would be the power of an isotropic source away that could provide such a signal? A light-year is the distance light travels in one year.

From the figure, approximate the smaller and larger wavelength at which the eye of a standard observer has half the eye's maximum sensitivity. What are the wavelength, frequency and period of the light at which the eye is the most sensitive?


Sunlight just outside the Earth's atmosphere has an intensity of Calculate
and
for sunlight there, assuming it to be a plane wave.
