Skip to main content

The Candela

The candela is the foundation unit for the measurement of visible light. It is one of the seven foundation SI units. It's formal definition is:

The candela is the luminous intensity, in a given direction. of a source that emits monochromatic radiation of frequency 540 x 1012 hertz and that has a radiant intensity in that direction of 1/683 watt per steradian.
The candela is abbreviated cd and its standard symbol is Iv. The candela is then used to define the lumen and other quantities used in the measurement of visible light. It is approximately equal to the old unit "candlepower" and is generally taken to be equivalent.

For an isotropic source, the relationship between the candela and lumens is 1 cd = 4π lm and the unit relationships is 1 cd = lm/sr.

Popular posts from this blog

Lloyd's’ mirror experiment

Lloyd's mirror This is another method for finding the wavelength of light by the division of wavefront. Light from a slit So falls on a silvered surface at a very small grazing angle of incidence as shown in the diagram (Figure 1). A virtual image of So is formed at S1. Interference occurs between the direct beam from So to the observer (0) and the reflected beam The zeroth fringe will be black because of the phase change due to reflection at the surface.  Application An interesting application of this effect may be observed when a helicopter flies above the sea near a radio transmitter. The helicopter will receive two signals: (a) one signal directly from the transmitter and (b) a second signal after reflection from the sea As the helicopter rises the phase difference between the two signals will alter and the helicopter will pass through regions of maxima and minima. Lloyd's mirror Experiment Lloyd’s Mirror is used to produce two-source interference...

Path difference and Phase difference

Path difference is the difference in path traversed by the two waves , measured in terms of wavelength of the associated wave. It has a direct relation with phase difference. Phase difference decides the nature of interference pattern but phase difference is found out by path difference. Let's assume that, two stones are thrown at two points which are very near, then you will see the following pattern as shown in the figure below: Eg: let's mark the first point of disturbance as S1S1 and the other as S2S2, then waves will be emanated as shown above. By having a cross-sectional view, you will see the same waves as shown in the figure below (in the below explanation wavelengths of waves emanated from two different disturbances is assumed to be the same). The waves emanating from S1S1 has arrived exactly one cycle earlier than the waves from S2S2. Thus, we say that, there is a path difference between the two waves of about λλ (wavelength). If the di...

Point Source vs Extended Source

For a point source, the emitted light intensity or pointance is the same in all directions, or isotropic. It behaves according to the inverse square law. A flat surface that reflects or emits equal luminance in every direction from the surface is said to be a lambertian surface. For example, an evenly illuminated flat surface such as a sheet of paper is approximately lambertian in that the luminance that you see from any direction is essentially the same. The intensity or pointance from such a surface in any direction is proportional to the cosine of the reflected angle. Reflection from a surface can be complicated by surface roughness. For an ideal lambertian surface the reflection will follow the cosine law. The ray showing 50% is at the angle 30° from the surface where cos 60° = 0.5. An interesting aspect of lambertian reflection is that although the luminous intensity will be half as much at that angle, the visual area that your eye sees is also half as much, so the surface a...