Bill
The logic from your statement follows the sun can only emit the spectra of the various elements and the emission should be in very distinct frequencies of the elements perhaps a few hundred spectral lines at most.
It's quite clear the answer is wrong as the suns emission is quite broad from UV down thru Visible spectrum to high IR and includes most frequencies and the emission has no real peaks in particular frequencies.
so its like at any time (t).
t=1 : the sun emits a broad range of photons like a
conveyor belt full of individual items and each item
is different from all of the other items and these items
make up the electromagnetic spectrum of the sun.
t=2 : the sun emits a broad range of photons like a
conveyor belt full of individual items and each item
is different from all of the other items and these items
make up the electromagnetic spectrum of the sun.
t=3 : the sun emits a broad range of photons like a
conveyor belt full of individual items and each item
is different from all of the other items and these items
make up the electromagnetic spectrum of the sun.
so that an object on the earth that is exposed to sunlight
will heat up evenly due to its color.
suppose there were a
1 mile square area glass mirror on the earths surface
that is painted black.
directly next to it there is a
1 mile square area glass mirror on the earths surface
that is painted white.
the heat that the two areas absorb due to exposure to the
suns light will be evenly spread out on each surface
yet the two areas will absorb different amounts of heat.
if I have photon detection equipment in the center of each
of the two areas the equipment will not detect a significant difference
in the spectrum of light that is reaching the equipment.
nor will it detect any significant peaks in the number of
any of the waves that make up the spectrum.
although the entire spectrum of light is detected by the
surface of each area , the only portion of the spectrum that
is absorbed by the paint on each surface is the portion
of the spectrum of light that the color of paint can absorb
and the remainder of the spectrum is reflected by the paint.
I personally doubt that the sun is emitting an exact
number of individual photons that all have different
wavelengths at any point in time.
this would require that all elements involved in
any process that could generate light from the
sun would need to be evenly distributed at every
point of photon emission.
this also means that each and every point on the suns surface
must emit photons in all frequencies and in all directions
due to the simple fact that light travels in a straight line.
that process would be extremely impossible
and this is a few of the reasons why I think that light
from our sun is radiated in a continuous stream like I
posted in the OP.
but there may be an answer found in further study that
shows that I am wrong about it...
