Describe how light waves interact with the clothes you are wearing and your eyes.

You have read that EM waves can interact with a material medium in

the same ways that mechanical waves do. Three forms of interaction

play an especially important role in how people see light. One form is

reflection. Most things are visible because they reflect light. The two

other forms of interaction are transmission and absorption.

Transmission is the passage of an EM wave

through a medium. If the light reflected from objects did not pass

through the air, windows, or most of the eye, we could not see the

objects. Absorption is the disappearance of an

EM wave into the medium. Absorption affects how things look, because

it limits the light available to be reflected or transmitted.