How Light Is Detected Affects the Atom That Emits It
Thursday, May 12, 2016 - 13:31
in Physics & Chemistry
Flick a switch on a dark winter day and your office is flooded with bright light, one of many everyday miracles to which we are all usually oblivious.A physicist would probably describe what is happening in terms of the particle nature of light. An atom or molecule in the fluorescent tube that is in an excited state spontaneously decays to a lower energy state, releasing a particle called a photon.