Speed of Light

Once upon a time, there was a little girl named Nikki who loved to draw and paint. She had a big box of crayons and a set of watercolors that she used to create beautiful pictures. She liked to draw flowers, animals, stars, and rainbows.

One day, Nikki was sitting in her room, drawing a picture of a rainbow. She had used all the colors of her crayons: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. She was very proud of her work and wanted to show it to her father.

She ran downstairs with her drawing in her hand and found her father in the living room. “Papa, look what I made!” she said excitedly.

Her father smiled and took the drawing from her. “Wow, Nikki, this is amazing! You drew a very nice rainbow. How did you do it?”

Nikki explained that she used all the colors of her crayons and followed the order of the rainbow. She said that she learned about rainbows from her teacher at school.

Her father nodded and said, “That’s very good, Nikki. Do you know what a rainbow is?”

Nikki thought for a moment and said, “A rainbow is something that appears in the sky after it rains. It has many colors and it looks pretty.”

Her father said, “That’s right, Nikki. But do you know how a rainbow is made?”

Nikki shook her head and said, “Yes, Papa, you had once explained me about rainbow formation. But can you please explain me about light and it’s speed?”

Her father said, “Well, Nikki, Light is something that we can see but we can’t touch. Light comes from different sources, like the sun, the stars, the moon, and even some lamps and candles. Light travels very fast, faster than anything else in the world. The speed of light is so fast that we can’t even measure it with our clocks or rulers. We can only use a special number to describe it. The number is 299,792,458 metre per second.”

Nikki’s eyes widened and she said, “Wow, Papa! That’s a very big number! How do you say it?”

Her father said, “We say it as two hundred ninety-nine million seven hundred ninety-two thousand four hundred fifty-eight. But we don’t have to say it every time we talk about the speed of light. We can use a shorter way to write it. We use a letter called c to represent the speed of light. So instead of writing 299,792,458, we can write c.”

Nikki said, “Oh, I see. So c means the speed of light.”

Her father said, “Yes, Nikki. c means the speed of light. And the speed of light is very important for making rainbows.”

Nikki said, “How so, Papa?”

Her father said, “Well, Nikki, when light travels from one place to another place that has different materials or substances in it, like air or water or glass or diamond or anything else that you can think of, something interesting happens. The light changes its direction slightly when it enters or leaves the different material or substance. This is called refraction.”

Nikki said, “Refraction? What does that mean?”

Her father said, “Refraction means bending or turning of light when it passes through different materials or substances.”

Nikki said, “Oh, I see. So light bends when it goes through different things.”

Her father said, “Yes, Nikki. Light bends when it goes through different things. And different colors of light bend differently when they go through different things.”

Nikki understood the concept of refraction and appreciated the speed of light.