- cross-posted to:
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- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
In a surprising finding, light can make water evaporate without heat::At the interface of water and air, light can, in certain conditions, bring about evaporation without the need for heat, according to an MIT study.
Not a correction but a minor clarification. Green light doesn’t inherently have the most energy. Shorter wavelengths have more energy but tend to scatter in our atmosphere and a lot of it doesn’t reach the surface (that’s why the sky is blue).
It’s also why UV light causes skin cancer and burns on humans, and kills bacteria/viruses/etc. Green is also pretty poor at lighting up flourescents, while blue(which has more energy) does much better. Ultra violet is even better than blue.
That does make me question your theory that green light is the most effective at evaporating water because it’s high energy. Blue/violet/ultra violet would be better than green if that was the case. The test didn’t use sunlight, it used artificial lighting and the effects of the atmosphere are effectively zero over short distances.
Yeah I should’ve been more clear about that. I’m currently getting my BS in physics so I’m more than aware of how energy correlates with the frequency/wavelength of electromagnetic radiation.
I’m under the assumption that there is some key information I’m missing regarding how energy is transferred to water from the electromagnetic radiation that makes green light carry more effective or usable energy for breaking those intramolecular bonds. Perhaps it’s the sepcific size of the wavelength? I know that often times when an objects size matches the wavelength passing through them some interesting things can happen though I don’t know details on this subject so I can’t be certain here.
In the case of plants the green light only carries more effective energy because the sun releases so much of it. Blue light carries more energy but green light is released so much more that it’s share of the percentage of total energy released by the sun is much greater. So when sunlight fluctuates for one reason or another it’s easier for the plant to regulate it’s own energy if it blocks out some of that green light.
I’ll amend that in my original comment
No worries. I did learn a lot from your comment by the way as I’m by no means a physics person… I just work with light as part of my job and the different behaviour from one colour/wavelength has practical (and safety) implications that I have to account for.
Thanksnfor the clarification, I wouldn’t have fixed that otherwise. It’s 5 am where I am and I haven’t slept so I’m not surprised I made that sort of mistake.
What do you do for work?