Lesson 5

AGENDA:

Physics of Light:

LIGHT AND MATTER:

• The General Structure of Matter

• Interaction of Light and Matter

• Temperature

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 PHYSICS OF LIGHT: UNIT MAP
LIGHT

Wave Particle
(EM radiation)
Big REALM Small
(photon)

Ways of Interacting with Matter Ways of Interacting with Matter

• absorption
• emission

Applications Applications

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 Video 5.1:

Atomic Structure

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 All matter is made of atoms

OPTIONAL RESOURCES: SCALES-OF-SIZES ANIMATIONS

http://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/primer/java/scienceopticsu/powersof10/index.html
http://www.nikon.com/about/feelnikon/universcale/index.htm
http://htwins.net/scale2/ 4
 Atomic Structure: Approximation
All regular matter is made up of
atoms. Atoms are in turn made
up of a nucleus (containing
positively-charged protons and
neutral neutrons) and
negatively-charged electrons
that orbit the nucleus.

The nucleus contains about

99.98% of the mass of the
entire atom, yet the whole atom
itself (including electrons) is
about 10,000 – 100,000 times
larger than the nucleus!
Analogy: if we magnified the atom to be the size of a football field,
then the nucleus would be the size of your thumb nail!
Video (Required): How Small Is An Atom? Spoiler: Very Small. (5 mins)

Video: See Subatomic Particles in Action With the Naked Eye (1 min) 5
NOVA’s ‘The Elegant Universe’ documentary is a 3-hour special, which does a good job
of reviewing most of our current physics about ‘the universe’, and considers the String
Theory as one possible theory to bridge the gap between large-scale and small-scale
physics. The main website is:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/elegant/

(Also available at York’s library.)

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 Video 5.2

The Bohr Atom

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 The Bohr Atom
Hydrogen atom is the simplest atom to study.

In 1913, Neil Bohr (Danish physicist) made a model to represent the hydrogen
atom. The Bohr model of the atom has the following ‘rules’:

1. Electrons can exist in only discrete (or ‘quantized’) energy orbitals inside an
atom.
2. Orbitals closer to the nucleus have lower energies.
3. Atom ‘wants’ to be in a lowest-possible energy state. 8
 Absorption and Emission in Atoms (hydrogen)
Absorption: an incoming photon of wavelength
λ and energy E=hc/λ hits an electron within an
atom. If this energy E corresponds EXACTLY to
the difference in energy values of the ‘jumped’
orbitals, then this electron can absorb the
energy of the photon and is ‘boosted’ up to a
higher orbital.
(called Hα)
Emission: electron falls from a higher orbital
to a lower orbital, releasing energy in the
process, in the form of a photon (visible or
non-visible light). The energy of the photon
released corresponds EXACTLY to the energy
difference between the ‘jumped’ orbitals.
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 Emissions Due to Collisions of Atoms
Rather than absorption
and emission happening
due to atom’s interaction
with light (‘external source
of energy’), it can also
happen due collisions of
atoms in a particular
medium such as hot
hydrogen gas (‘internal
source of energy’).

Imagine that we have a hot hydrogen gas.

– Collisions among the hydrogen atoms cause electrons to jump up to higher
orbitals, or energy levels
– Collisions can also cause the electrons to jump back to lower levels, and emit a
photon of a particular wavelength λ
– If the electron falls from orbital 3 to orbital 2, the emitted photon will have a
wavelength of 656 nm (‘red light’)
– If the electron falls from orbital 4 to orbital 2, the emitted photon will have a
wavelength of 486 nm (‘blue light’)
 Energy Levels
Another way to represent absorption/emission processes in the atoms is with
use of energy level diagrams:

Absorption Emission

After an electron absorbs an incoming photon’s energy and is nearly

instantaneously ‘boosted’ to the higher ‘excited’ energy state, it will not last
there long (only for about 10-8s, or 10μs) and will eventually come back down
to its lower energy state (where it ‘prefers to be’) through emission. 11
 Video 5.3

Fluorescence Emission

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 ‘Cascading’ Emission is Fluorescence
Sometimes if the electron absorbed a more energetic photon and was boosted
to an even higher energy state, it may not come back down in one jump, but
rather cascade down through several steps, emitting photos of other ‘smaller’
energies (rather than the one total photon initially absorbed).

Hα (red photon): seen in many

emission nebulae in space

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 View:
SUPPLEMENT: ASTRO PHOTOS

Examples of:

• emission nebulae (red from the Hα transition in Hydrogen)

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 Electrons can jump between different energy levels
in Hydrogen:

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 Energy Level Diagrams

Energy of a photon
may also be given in
another unit: eV
(electron Volt)

If an electron absorbs a photon with energy of at least 13.3eV, or a wavelength

of λ=91.2nm or shorter, it will get a large-enough energy boost that it will be
kicked out of the atom completely: this is the process of ionization. 16
 Different Energy Levels Create Different Photons
The difference in energy levels between orbitals of electrons in atoms therefore
determines the specific energy (and thus colour) of a photon that will be
emitted!

→We see photons of different colour (energy) emitted from atoms depending
on the amount of energy released during the ‘jump’ of the electron from a
higher-level state to a lower-level state.

These ‘massless’ particles – photons – can nonetheless interact with regular

particles of matter (with mass), through the exchange of their energy.

Hydrogen Atom Simulator:

http://astro.unl.edu/naap/hydrogen/animations/hydrogen_atom.html

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 Supplemental Readings

Hydrogen Energy Levels Lab (NAAP)

http://astro.unl.edu/naap/hydrogen/hydrogen.html

More in depth: Light as a Particle (Chapter 3 of ‘The Modern Revolution in

Physics’ web-book)
http://www.lightandmatter.com/html_books/6mr/ch03/ch03.html

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Video 5.4

Temperature

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 Temperature Scales
There are several temperature scales used in the world today.

The Celsius scale (°C) is the most common scale used throughout the world.
It is based on the properties of water: it freezes at 0°C, and boils at 100°C.

The Fahrenheit scale (°F) is mostly obsolete, but is still used in the US today. It
is defined such that 0°F is freezing point of salt water, and about 100°F is the
normal temperature of human body.

The Kelvin scale (K) is the ‘temperature scale of choice’ for physicists, because
it is based on the properties of matter (atoms): ‘absolute zero’ is at 0 K.
(this temperature is equivalently expressed as -273°C).

Absolute zero: the temperature at which all atomic motion is at its minimum.
(i.e. atoms are nearly motionless) It is the lowest temperature any matter can
reach (theoretically). It is precise value is set at -273.15°C, or 0K. 20
PBS (NOVA) Documentary: Absolute Zero (2 hours)

Watch Preview; explore Interactive Features:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/zero/

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 Conversion Between Temperature Scales
Simple conversion formulae can be used to switch between the scales.

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from Celsius to Fahrenheit → TF = TC + 32
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from Fahrenheit to Celsius → TC = (TF − 32)
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from Celsius to Kelvin → TK = TC + 273

from Kelvin to Celsius → TC = TK − 273

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Temperature Scales - Examples

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 Temperature
Any macroscopic object (fire, ice cubes, people, stars) that is above the
absolute zero temperature (0 K, or -273°C) will emit some radiation at all
wavelengths, at all times.

They emit this radiation (energy) because the microscopic particles inside them
(atoms) are at constant random motion, moving around and colliding with each
other. Whenever they change their particular state of motion, or collide with
each other, some EM radiation (or energy) is emitted.

In fact, temperature of an object is a direct measure of the amount of

microscopic motion within it. ‘Hot’ and ‘cold’ are terms telling us how much or
little (or, fast or slow) of this microscopic motion is happening within the object.

Cold Hot

Temperature

slow motions of atoms fast motions of atoms

→ little energy radiated → lots of energy radiated 24

Temperature: Phase of Matter (eg: water)

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 Phase of Matter Example: Water

Water (H2O) is
the only
substance on
Earth which can
NATURALLY
exist in all three
phases

Animation:
Phases of Water

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