If light is made of atoms, why does it contain all wavelengths?
Light isn’t made out of atoms, it’s made out of photons. Wavelength just refers to…well…the length of the wave the photon is traveling in. You can have a photon traveling at a short wavelength, get absorbed, and shoot back out at a long wavelength. I think you’re getting two concepts mixed up. It is true that light with shorter wavelengths have more kinetic energy because they’re moving faster compared to longer wavelengths. The other concept is that everything can be broken down to smaller and smaller bits until you get to energy. E=mc2. Mass is energy. So the mass that makes up a photon has a specific amount of energy that never changes (you can think of it as potential energy). But that doesn’t affect the speed or kinetic energy of the photon. I hope that makes sense Edit: Thanks Michael for catching that. I meant frequency, not speed. I really just need to get some sleep.
