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Im going to request that any reply to this post
be removed by a moderator if the reply is not scientifically
supported or is off topic or misleading or religion oriented
or hateful or slanderous or basically down right terroristic.

in other words if orac or samwik replies.


when thinking about sunlight ( naturally generated light )
from our sun not artificially generated light caused by the
manipulation of electric currents through a medium that
produces electromagnetic waves or any other process.

Im thinking that the electromagnetic waves generated by
our sun contain the entire spectrum of electromagnetic waves
that our sun can generate and transmit.

and that the transmission of the entire spectrum of those sun
generated electromagnetic waves are contained in a continuous
wave with frequencies that range from the shortest wave to the longest
wave then from the longest wave to the shortest wave.

like copying the below image and flipping it horizontally
and placing the two images side by side with the two
long waves facing each other.





electromagnetic waves generated by our sun are due to
a continuous process within our sun so the electromagnetic
wave produced by this process must also be continuous.

the reason that we can detect specific wave lengths of
electromagnetic waves is because we have built detection
equipment to detect those specific electromagnetic waves.


in order for our sun to emit or transmit all of the
frequencies of electromagnetic waves that it generates
our sun would need to consist of all of the molecules
that can emit those specific frequencies and all of those
molecules would need to also be present in all of that specific
molecules modes that that specific molecule must be in in
order to absorb or emit a photon with a specific frequency , I highly doubt that this is what is happening.

the suns temperature alone would prevent the above from
occurring.

Unfortunately your basic premise is wrong. Electromagnetic waves are generated in the sun by the transition of electrons from one state to another. The process is not continuous. One photon is generated for each transition from a higher state to a lower one. The wavelength of each photon is determined by the difference in energy between the higher state and the lower one. There is no continuous source of photons, other than the fact that the Sun creates photons one at a time at such short intervals that there appears to be a continuous creation.

In fact it could be kind of like a ditch digger who works continuously to dig a ditch, but he still does it one shovel full at a time. The Sun has a lot of ditch diggers digging photons one at a time.

Note that this is an extreme simplification. The total process by which the photon is created is very complex, but this, I think, clearly defines the last step in the creation of the photon before it leaves the Sun.

Bill Gill

Bill

would you consider that the ditch digger would be
continually digging the ditch if he lifted the shovel
full of dirt to throw it outside the ditch?

a continuous process that is comprised of a chain of necessary
events or sub processes or movements and actions as
in sticking the shovel into the ground to fill the shovel with
dirt , then lifting the shovel and throwing the dirt
out of the ditch would involve billions upon billions
of sub processes by the ditch diggers brain and nervous
system and muscles and his entire body in general
but can be called a continuous process to get the dirt out
of the ditch.

as in saying he is a ditch digger.

or he performs the continuous process of ditch digging.

like when our sun performs a continuous process of the many
events that lead up to the emission of a photon.

or it performs the continuous process of photon emission.

for instance a continuous process being a chain of events that occur in order to accomplish a goal or that lead up to a event.

have you ever seen a photon detection read out of the sun
that shows a break in the detection stream that it is
detecting and recording that could be described as being
a space between photons?

if there is a break in the stream that is detected would it be
valid to claim it as being a break or would it be more truthful
to admit that the break may simply be of such a low intensity
that the detection equipment might not be capable of
detecting it or picking it up.



so do you think that the sun only emits a photon in one frequency.

or do you think that the sun only emits a photon consisting
of all frequencies that it can emit.

or do you think that the sun emits photons of various frequencies.

I would like your opinion on this because your the EE here
I think from previous post.

I didnt see this the first time I read it , should I take
it that you do think that the sun emits photons of various frequencies?

in other words the sun does not emit one frequency of a wave.

and that the one wave is not short wave only?

As I was attempting to explain, but you don't seem to be interested in understanding, the processes which drive the Sun emit one photon at a time. Throughout its bulk there are many such processes. Each process emits one photon. The frequency of that photon depends on the details of the particular process which leads to that one photon. Since there are a huge number of such processes taking place it appears to a casual viewer that the production of photons is continuous, and that the sun emits the photons in a continuous spread of frequencies. However, careful investigation shows that this is a naive idea. The realization that the photons come one at a time at discrete frequencies has been arrived at through careful observation and experiment over a long period of time. The thing about it is that this is the only explanation that explains all of the observations.

The thing about science is that unless an explanation (theory) takes care of all of the observations then it is not correct. Over several hundreds of years the observation of the way light works can only be accounted for by the above description. As I said of course the actual way it works is much more complex. That is true because the whole thing has to hang together. If just one of the assumptions is wrong the whole thing falls apart. So far no scientist has been able to find anything wrong with the theories that lead to this description. Whenever somebody says that it is wrong they have not studied the facts closely enough to detect the problems with their ideas.

Bill Gill

ok , I get it.

so the photons that are emitted from our sun must
be emitted by the elements that make up the mass of the
surface or photosphere of the sun.

Photospheric composition of our sun (by mass)

Hydrogen 73.46%
Helium 24.85%
Oxygen 0.77%
Carbon 0.29%
Iron 0.16%
Neon 0.12%
Nitrogen 0.09%
Silicon 0.07%
Magnesium 0.05%
Sulfur 0.04%


this must mean that the photons must be emitted by
some or even all of the above 10 elements that make
up our suns photosphere.

nitrogen cannot absorb a photon nor can oxygen
as far as I understand and I will look up the rest.

so the em spectrum that the sun emits must come from
the above elements.

Bill G you have dug yourself into a hole with that answer. Whilst the statement is true that is only a minor part of the answer.

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.

You need to do some reading on the sun, start with blackbody. Like I said to Samwik in the other post, trying to fix Paul's errors, while making errors just as bad does not help.

I would suggest you just leave Paul alone with this unless you are prepared to do a lot of reading Bill because there are more than a few gotchas and your answer is likely to be as bad as his. Sorry Bill, I am really skeptical you will be able to give the correct scientific answer just based on science discussions with you. For myself, I am unwilling to get involved in yet another stupid argument with Paul, so I suggest we all just let him go with the thread like we do Marosz.

Possibly you could start with an old filament globe for your understanding but there are still a lot of other things to add in. I am sure you see a filament (incandescent) light doesn't work in the way you described above.

I know you mean well and like science, but this is one of those cases we discussed. You need to either drop out or completely rethink your answer remembering the end result is a rather smooth broadband spectrum of emission frequencies.

Orac, you are at it again. I didn't say any of that. I said it was very complex. The only statement I made was that the photons are created when an electron drops from 1 energy state to a lower one. The frequency depends on the difference in the energy. That says nothing about where the electron is. All that is required is that there be a change in energy. I didn't say anything about 'peaks in frequency'. I was trying to point out to Paul that he was wrong about the process that leads to radiation from the Sun is continuous.

You are trying to put a lot of stuff into my words which I specifically excluded to get down to the very basic topic that I was addressing. I was not trying to define any of the processes that occur. If you can figure a way for the Sun to emit photons which does not contain energy transitions please let me know.

Taking exception to somebody who is trying to teach a first grader how physics works by simplifying the subject is not a great idea. It just make you look like a jerk.

Bill Gill

Bill



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...

Sorry you are the one who looks like a jerk because it's appears you don't actually know the answer and now trying to blame me.

Simple question how and why is the spectrum broad and smooth? Prove to me you know the answer because that is what Paul is wondering.

Hint the answer HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH TRANSITION OF ELECTRON ENERGY LEVELS which produce distinct precise frequencies

So why don't you man up and take my advice and start with an incandescent globe.

You don't need energy levels or any such junk to understand it ... just think about it ... not like you haven't seen an incandescent globe is it. You claim you are trying to simplify the situation SO GO AHEAD AND SIMPLIFY THE PROBLEM and stop complaining about me.

Paul this is a one time post I will not discuss it but I will give you the true scientific answer.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_radiation

So the official science line is it is the movement of charged particles induced by temperature vibration that creates such a wide smooth spectrum.

An incandescent lamp works the same way which is why the filament has to be white hot.

It has nothing to do with electrons and energy levels which are ionization things and why I took exception to Bill G's answer. So being clear the energy levels in atoms etc are not in play in the effect, there is however limited ionization withing elements in the sun but its a tiny percentage of the emission. The bulk of the suns radiation is thermal which is about kinetic energy of particles not energy levels of anything.

You are correct in that the process does not require or dictate that the emissions are photons, that evidence comes from analysis of the sunlight. The suns emissions contain Shot noise or Poisson noise which can only come about by having discrete packets of energy. So that is if you like direct observation that sun emissions are indeed photons.

Why a smooth kinetic process still ends up putting out photons I will not answer because it requires a depth of science you don't yet have and frankly won't accept anyhow. I suspect you will just ignore all the evidence the emission has photons because that is a bit of an issue for you.

Lets just say in layman terms the suns spectrum is because the sun is hot ... can't be any simpler.

No energy levels were required in the making of this post ... I did however need Kinetic Energy, Bill

So Paul you were closer to actual science than Bill G and why I called it so ... I don't play favourites.

FEEL FREE TO ARGUE AGAINST IT ... I WILL NOT RESPOND ... I WILL LEAVE YOU TOO IT.

So my OP is correct.

the thermal energy that the sun radiates is a combination
of the heat that is generated by the continuous processes
that occur within the sun.

also the heat that a process generates does not appear in
its highest magnatude suddenly ...

the thermal heat continuously builds and then falls in magnitude.

and it is the continuous building and falling of the
radiated thermal energy that results in what we detect
as the electromagnetic spectrum.

Not exact but yes closer than Bill G's answer, I would have accepted it. That is why I picked on Bill G not you.

As stated the problem is the emission when measured definitely contains photons which will perplex your answer.

I wouldn't for example use "continuous building and falling" the charged particles are just moving and colliding randomly the emission reflects that. You correctly got it as heat but missed converting that to kinetic energy.

Your question is how and why does the kinetic energy get quantized in the collisions. There is no obvious answer for you, it's not what you see in classical physic collisions. Which is why I suspect you will try to deny the fact rather than deal with the fact and why I am staying out of this discussion.

For all that I am never right So don't use me as a reference ... but you now have the terms and a start reference.

I am sorry I had to interject, but you should see why, I hate butchered science .... I will now leave you both with it.

That isn't what I saw Paul asking. He was making a statement that

This to means that he thinks that all of the frequencies are in one wave. That suggests that the frequencies are all in one container, so to speak. What I was telling him is that each photon is a separate entity.

Beyond that I had nothing to say. I was not at all discussing the fact that there is a range of frequencies that are emitted by the Sun. And I was not discussing why the shape of the spectrum of those frequencies is what it is. I was specifically discussing the emission of one photon.

If you weren't in such a hurry to make things more complex than what they need to be then you would not jump on what other people say and try to show how much smarter you are than they are.

I stand by my statements, because I was trying to keep it down to a level that a first grader could understand.

I just went back and looked at the answer following the one I wrote this in response to. You say it is thermal, so it is not a change in energy levels. Well, if you can create a photon without changing energy levels tell me how. I don't think that you can create a photon without having a charged particle change energy levels. Photon are electromagnetic particles/fields produced by the motion of charged particles.

Bill Gill

Wouldn’t nuclear fusion create most of the photons in the sun?
I would expect, at the sun’s temperatures, most atoms would be stripped of their electrons …so electronic transitions wouldn’t be that common.

I posted a link from NASA about how photons take many multiple millennia to travel from the core of the sun to its surface.

They note how “Originally born as energetic gamma rays, after billions of collisions with matter, this radiation [as photons] reaches the surface and escapes into space.”

I would imagine, during those “billions of collisions,” that most of the original gamma rays would be “spread out” or “shifted” down into lower energy frequencies, thus (perhaps?) generating the full solar spectrum.

But that is just what I expect and imagine ...and guess. I'd be happy to see any sources citing otherwise.
~

p.s. I’m guessing that some large-scale mechanical processes such as convection, possibly involving magnetic fields, might also produce photons of their own; though ultimately these processes are driven by the forces of nuclear fusion and gravity too, so they still depend on the original production of gamma rays.

Actually you are pretty dam spot on Sam ... the nuclear reactions involving energy level reactions simply create the heat. The heat creates the light from the kinetic energy of the heat which is why is why the spectrum is smooth and broad .... which is the problem Paul was after in the OP.

And he is correct Bill G there simply is no reason within the creation process as to why photons rather than waves should be created ... I said that.

It is the same situation on an incandescent bulb there simply is no reason in classical physics that the light emitted is photons rather than waves. You have kinetic energy and that usually isn't quantized.

You keep saying I am making it more complex I am making it DEAD SIMPLE ... HEAT THAT MAKES THE LIGHT. Why that light is quantized into photons you can't get from the process. Most children get that and then also understand why fire makes light etc.


There is the physics you are missing and why I took you to task

The connection between kinetic energy of molecules and emission comes from the photoelectric effect which Einstein won a nobel prize for nothing to do with energy levels in the particles. The energy level quantization is in the EM NOT THE PARTICLES.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photoelectric_effect

You then connect it thru Max Plancks and black body radiation to get the complete story and he derives the formula E=hv and the energy must be quantized. The quantization is not produced by the process it is because all electromagnetic waves must be quantized.


ALL EM is quantized ... ALL NO EXCEPTIONS.

This allows all EM to have "photons" which is the packet multiples of the minimum level of quantization. Classically you don't think of RF for example as being able to have photons you make it a wave in classical electromagnetics. I suspect that is why you are trying to make the process create the quantization and photons.

Why a photon is emitted is because the kinetic energy (motion) of a charged particle changed/reveresed and it gives up an energy packet quantized to that energy amount. The quantization is in the EM not the process which is actually linear.

The upshot is every material emits the same color at the same temperature telling you the emission has nothing to do with ENERGY LEVELS WITHIN THE MATERIAL. White hot is white hot and is the same temperature regardless of the material.

ANY ANSWER THAT INVOLVES PROPERTIES OF THE MATERIAL IS WRONG.

https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/docs/Photons-ST-PO.pdf

The Convection Zone: The Mystery Layer

When the photons arrive at the convection layer, 150,000 km
below the sun’s surface, the nuclei are able to hold on to
electrons, and neutral atoms and ions are formed. And photon
energies have been degraded to the point that gaseous
atoms and ions absorb the energy of the photons and hold it,
rather than having it bounce off
(or be absorbed and re radiated).
These atoms effectively block the outward flow of radiative
energy and the energy absorbed by the atoms
makes them enormously hot.

At that point the convection currents take over and carry
the sun’s energy to the photosphere on seething rivers of hot
gases. Although it may have taken the photons a million years
to reach the convection zone, the energy they deliver
rises through the entire convention zone in about three months.
All the energy emitted at the surface of the sun is
transported there by convection.

The Photosphere: Ah! Light At Last!

The photosphere, at the top of the convection zone, is the
visible bright surface of the sun.
Here the gaseous atoms no longer block radiative flow.
As the hot atoms cool, they release their excess energy once
again as photons that stream unimpeded into space and ultimately
provide support for life on Earth

that makes sense.


as the hot atoms cool...

photons are emitted because of a continuous energy level
change from higher energy levels to lower energy levels.

and this process streams the spectrum.

not sure what happens to the atoms after they reach a
certain energy level..!!!

Agreed Paul the heat makes the photons I pretty much think I covered all that and you were close its a fairly continual process. You notice they just convert the heat to photons not waves .. as trying to explain to Bill G that requires a more complex explaination from different lines of evidence.

In some ways they did a bit of hand wave to create the photons at the end and don't explain why.

The question you may ponder is does heat always release photons can it ever release waves?

none of this process is proven , we really dont know exactly
how it works.

so the only real thing we have to work with is what we can
detect with what we have built to detect with.

at the end of the day its just a vibration.

its not what we think of as a photon or a wave
its a expanding vibrating sphere.