light
How Far Can you See?
03/06/08 08:01 Filed in: General
Science
On my dive to school today, the Walton and Johnson
show was on. I think the topic of complaint was off
shore oil rigs. One girl (lady) called in and said
something along the lines of:
“Let me give you guys a science lesson. The human eye can only see 17 miles. So, if they put oil rigs more than 17 miles off the coast, no one can see them to complain about them.”
So, why did I think this was interesting?
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“Let me give you guys a science lesson. The human eye can only see 17 miles. So, if they put oil rigs more than 17 miles off the coast, no one can see them to complain about them.”
So, why did I think this was interesting?
Read More...
Photon - do we need these?
08/04/08 16:53 Filed in: Physics
PHOTON
This word comes up quite often in physics. What does it mean? What do people use it for? How did this word come about? Do we EVEN NEED this word? Surprisingly, the answer to the last question is NO. You can mostly blame Einstein, but also Gilbert Lewis on the Nobel Prize committee - whoever they are called.
(the following is a summary of arguments summarized by my colleague David Norwood - so you can argue with him when you do not agree with this).
Before I go further in my summary, here is the paper from Norwood that I am basing this post on - The Use and Abuse of the “photon” in Nanomechanics (pdf)
In case you don't like to read much, here is the whole point:
This word comes up quite often in physics. What does it mean? What do people use it for? How did this word come about? Do we EVEN NEED this word? Surprisingly, the answer to the last question is NO. You can mostly blame Einstein, but also Gilbert Lewis on the Nobel Prize committee - whoever they are called.
(the following is a summary of arguments summarized by my colleague David Norwood - so you can argue with him when you do not agree with this).
Before I go further in my summary, here is the paper from Norwood that I am basing this post on - The Use and Abuse of the “photon” in Nanomechanics (pdf)
In case you don't like to read much, here is the whole point:
- Einstein's explanation of the photoelectric effect says that light is like a particle
- Gilbert Lewis comes up with the term "photon"
- Textbooks from thence forth use the concept of the particle nature of light
- It turns out that the wave nature of light explains the photoelectric effect (and many other effects that people use to proclaim photon-ness of light)
- There is perhaps a need for a quantum theory of radiation, but this is different than the particle-nature of light.
How does shiny stuff work?
24/01/08 14:27 Filed in: General
Science
Suppose you shine a light on a mirror in a dark room,
what would you see? Well, it depends on what angle
you are looking at the mirror. One very common
response is that the mirror will be shiny and bright
since you are shining a light on it. I built a box to
explore this question. Read
More...
