We spend our lives in visible light without risks to our health. Yet exposure to UV waves in sunlight can cause skin cancer. What is the BEST explanation for this?
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UV waves have higher frequency than visible light. For comparison, visible light has frequency in the range 430-770 THz (10^{12} Hz), while ultraviolets (UV) have frequency higher than these values (at the order of 1 PHz, 1\cdot 10^{15}Hz).
The energy of electromagnetic radiation is proportional to its frequency, according to the equation
E=hf
where h is the Planck constant and f is the frequency. We see that the higher the frequency, the greater the energy, so UV waves carry more energy than visible light.
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