Question

Under what conditions can light be modeled like a ray? Like a wave?

Short answer

Light may be described both as a wave and as a ray.

Step-by-step solution

Concept Introduction

Conditions that describe that the light can be modeled as a wave, a ray, or both of them, completely depend on the properties it depicts.

Explanation

Light may be portrayed in two ways in our scenario.

In the first case, light can be modeled to be a ray, when the object size is substantially larger than the light's wavelength, the diffraction effect will be negligible.

In the second method, the light can be modeled as a wave, when the aperture or object size is equivalent to the wavelength of light and we can see a beautiful diffraction pattern.

The best example, where the light can be modeled as a ray is described in the photoelectric effect, which resulted in a Nobel Prize in Physics in the year of 1921.