15
Mar
Hello awesome people! Two weeks ago I had an awesome laboration that I will tell you about. 😛
If an electrica discharge (electrons that move around due to a potential difference “Voltage”) goes through a gas-filled tube, kinda like lightning. Then there is high probability that some electrons from the electrical discharge will collide with gas molecules and excite the up an electron from the atom to a certain energy (E2) and after about ten raised to minus seven seconds, the excited electron returns to a lower energy level (E1), the excess energy is then converted into a photon that emits in a random direction with an energy that is the difference between the two energy states (E2) and (E1). Energy of the photon is given by hf = E2 – E1. (Beautiful and simple equation right there foks!) Where h is plancks constant and f is the frequency. An important scientific discovery by this was that the light emitted consisted of only certain wavelengths and colors which are different depending on the type of atoms presented in the gas. By refracting the incoming light with a prism one can observe the different colors as crisp columns on a screen.
The slit regulates the amount of incoming light. A crosshairs is centered in the center of the lens through which the observations are made. At the wavelength wheel the wavelengths are read in nm but it also rotates the prism inside the black box to get the desired spectral line in the center of the crosshair.
Some damn cool glowing hydrogen!!!
Look through the lens and observe the spectral lines that forms when prism refracts the light.
Since a prism refracts light of different wavelengths we can then see what kind of wavelengths hydrogen is composed of.
Turquoise (green/blue) light at a wavelength 487 nm
Blue light (Or is it black hmmm…?) at a wavelength of 435 nm
Red light at a wavelength 660 nm
Sodium had a very bright yellow glow in the middle of a wavelength 589.3 nm. To the left a faint red spectral line at 630 nm, and a green spectral line the right with a wavelength of 568 nm.
The lowest-lying energy levels of the sodium outermost electron in which the various transitions are marked.
Now what was this all for?? Yeah.. I only calculated on the difference between energy. But basically you can expand this method to observer the spectral lines from stars and planets to get information of what molecules and atoms they are made of which is freaking awesome and has been a huge help for scientists.
For those who want can read my whole report (In swedish) where everything is explained in greater detail by clicking the button below.
The Experiment
Physics
2015-03-15 @ 17:38
physicsscience
Awesome älskling! <3 Vad grym du är <3
Tack älskling :*
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