Final answer:
The interaction of light with media includes reflection, refraction, and absorption; reflection occurs at the same angle, while refraction involves a bending of light as it changes medium. Transmittance happens in transparent objects, and all electromagnetic waves, unlike matter waves, can travel through a vacuum, which is why outer space isn't ideal for sound to propagate.
Step-by-step explanation:
Interactions of Light
The way that light waves interact with different mediums is called the interaction of light. This includes processes such as reflection, refraction, and absorption. Reflection occurs when light waves bounce off a medium at the same angle to which it initially struck the material, known as the angle of incidence. For example, if light hits a mirror at a 40-degree angle, it reflects off at a 40-degree angle. During refraction, light waves change speed and direction as they move from one medium to another, causing them to bend. This happens due to differences in the optical densities of the materials. When light passes through an object, this is called transmittance, and occurs in materials that are transparent. Absorption occurs when material captures the energy of a light wave.
Reflection of light creates images as with a mirror, while refraction can also form images, as seen with lenses. Light interaction with different materials is such that a mirror reflects almost all light, glass of water allows light to pass through but bends the light rays (refraction), and dark fabric absorbs most of the light, reflecting little.
Matter waves are examples of quantum phenomena such as electron waves within atoms. Electromagnetic waves include gamma rays, x-rays, ultraviolet, visible light, infrared, microwaves, and radio waves. The key difference is that electromagnetic waves can travel through a vacuum, whereas matter waves are associated with particles and have properties of both waves and particles.
For sound waves to travel, there must be a medium like solid, liquid, or gas. Thus, outer space would not be an ideal spot for a concert because sound waves need a medium to travel, and space is a vacuum with very few particles.
As for light and sound waves, light travels faster in air than in metal because light waves have different speeds in different media. They travel fast in less dense media, such as air, and slow down in more dense media, like metal.