What is Incident light?

Incident light is the light that hits something, like the sun hitting a toy car on the playground.

Imagine you're playing outside on a bright day. The sun is shining down, and your favorite toy car is sitting on the ground. That light from the sun is what we call incident light. It's just like when someone throws a ball at you, that ball is like the incident light, and you're the thing it hits.

When the incident light hits your toy car, something interesting can happen: it might reflect off the car, making it shiny, or it might pass through if the car were transparent. But for now, just think of incident light as the light that comes first, before anything else happens, like the beginning of a game of tag, where you're the one being tagged! Incident light is the light that hits something, like the sun hitting a toy car on the playground.

Imagine you're playing outside on a bright day. The sun is shining down, and your favorite toy car is sitting on the ground. That light from the sun is what we call incident light. It's just like when someone throws a ball at you, that ball is like the incident light, and you're the thing it hits.