ALDO:
Carlos from Spain:
ALDO:
 

It has something to do how much energy is needed to heave electrons on another energy level...... or so Smiley I mean why you don´t see it with naked eyes .... 

If the photons coming from the light source (ambient light) do not have enough energy to bump up the electrons of the material's atoms to a higher energy orbit, the photon will travel right through the atom, in other words, it won't be reflected back to your eyes, and so the material will let light pass through it and be transparent to light, i.e. invisible. I'm guessing this is what he was talking about in reference to that slippery frost.

Its very interesting. The way you see light reflected by visible objects is because the photon's energy is enough to be able to hit the electron and the electron absorbs the photon, and that energy causes the electron to jump to a higher outer orbit which has higher energy, then electron will then drop back down to its initial orbit while at the same time produces a photon that will be sent back towards your eye. Electron orbits have electrons of a quantized energy that corresponds to that orbit, if the photon's energy does not match the necessary energy of the electron, the electron will not be able to jump orbit and so there is no interaction with the photon, and the photon is not reflected back, it goes through.

Depending on how the material has its atoms bounded together, its electrons need more energy or less to be bumped by photons. So visible light does not have enough energy for example to be able to bump the electrons of glass for example, or of diamond, though diamond is so hard (the hardest of all) that it will slow down the photons causing them to change the angle of direction more than glass as they pass though (like a prism), which is why it makes it sparkle more than any other gem since light is more twisted all over the place as it crosses it many plains with which it was cut with, and comes out in many angles, which you see as shining or sparkling. 

This is also why metals are shinny, since they atoms are bonded via metallic bonds and in such bonds the electrons are free to move around the group of atoms like a collective cloud, so its very easy to bump those electrons and the photon reflect back at you, and this is also why metals are such good conductors since those electrons can move so freely, compared to ioninc bonds or especially covalent bonds which hold the electrons very tightly (ie. diamond is carbon atoms with covalent bonds in a crystal lattice).

And this is how in RT we can highjack a McLaren thread with quantum physics SmileySmiley


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⇒ Carlos - Porsche 991 Carrera GTS

 

maybe we don´t share the same political opinion but at least both of us seems to love physics - in this case I can sacrifice my beloved McLaren thread Smiley

Smiley amiguitos.gif


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⇒ Carlos - Porsche 991 Carrera GTS