• DrQuint@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    13
    ·
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    Eh, I think it’s an hard clear Yes. The radiation released by an element when coming out of an excited state depends on the energy difference between N levels and it is generally consistent for that given element.

    How do they get excited? You give them energy. How? One way is by shinning a light.

    Is there a name for radiation of a specific frequency within the visible spectrum? Yes. A color.

    All rare gas lightbulbs even have a specific color.

    The only way for us to discount the emission specturm as a color is if we go philosophical about the nature of color. And that’s for literary nerds, not physics nerds, and I doubt people google the former as frequently as the latter.

    • GCostanzaStepOnMe@feddit.de
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      1 year ago

      True, but a childish intuition about “having a color” would most likely imply that you can see a structure of the thing (like a ball) that is colored in (which you can’t with atoms). On the other hand if you consider an atom a tiny pointsource, like a star in the sky, then it makes sense again.