..... Click the link for more information. or other form of radiation radiation , term applied to the emission and transmission of energy through space or through a material medium and also to the radiated energy itself. In its widest sense the term includes electromagnetic, acoustic, and particle radiation, and all forms of ionizing
..... Click the link for more information. separated according to wavelength, frequency, energy, or some other property. Beams of charged particles can be separated into a spectrum according to mass in a mass spectrometer (see mass spectrograph mass spectrograph, device used to separate electrically charged particles according to their masses; a form of the instrument known as a mass spectrometer is often used to measure the masses of isotopes of elements. J. J. Thomson and F. W. Aston showed (c.
..... Click the link for more information. ). Physicists often find it useful to separate a beam of particles into a spectrum according to their energy.
Continuous and Line Spectra
Dispersion, the separation of visible light into a spectrum, may be accomplished by means of a prism prism, in optics, a piece of translucent glass or crystal used to form a spectrum of light separated according to colors. Its cross section is usually triangular.
..... Click the link for more information. or a diffraction diffraction, bending of waves around the edge of an obstacle. When light strikes an opaque body, for instance, a shadow forms on the side of the body that is shielded from the light source.
..... Click the link for more information. grating. Each different wavelength or frequency of visible light corresponds to a different color color, effect produced on the eye and its associated nerves by light waves of different wavelength or frequency. Light transmitted from an object to the eye stimulates the different color cones of the retina, thus making possible perception of various colors in the
..... Click the link for more information. , so that the spectrum appears as a band of colors ranging from violet at the short-wavelength (high-frequency) end of the spectrum through indigo, blue, green, yellow, and orange, to red at the long-wavelength (low-frequency) end of the spectrum. In addition to visible light, other types of electromagnetic radiation electromagnetic radiation, energy radiated in the form of a wave as a result of the motion of electric charges. A moving charge gives rise to a magnetic field, and if the motion is changing (accelerated), then the magnetic field varies and in turn produces an
..... Click the link for more information. may be spread into a spectrum according to frequency or wavelength.
The spectrum formed from white light contains all colors, or frequencies, and is known as a continuous spectrum. Continuous spectra are produced by all incandescent solids and liquids and by gases under high pressure. A gas under low pressure does not produce a continuous spectrum but instead produces a line spectrum, i.e., one composed of individual lines at specific frequencies characteristic of the gas, rather than a continuous band of all frequencies. If the gas is made incandescent by heat or an electric discharge, the resulting spectrum is a bright-line, or emission, spectrum, consisting of a series of bright lines against a dark background. A dark-line, or absorption, spectrum is the reverse of a bright-line spectrum; it is produced when white light containing all frequencies passes through a gas not hot enough to be incandescent. It consists of a series of dark lines superimposed on a continuous spectrum, each line corresponding to a frequency where a bright line would appear if the gas were incandescent. The Fraunhofer lines appearing in the spectrum of the sun are an example of a dark-line spectrum; they are caused by the absorption of certain frequencies of light by the cooler, outer layers of the solar atmosphere. Line spectra of either type are useful in chemical analysis, since they reveal the presence of particular elements. The instrument used for studying line spectra is the spectroscope spectroscope, optical instrument for producing spectral lines and measuring their wavelengths and intensities, used in spectral analysis (see spectrum). When a material is heated to incandescence it emits light that is characteristic of the atomic makeup of the
..... Click the link for more information. .
The Quantum Explanation of Spectral Lines
The explanation for exact spectral lines for each substance was provided by the quantum theory quantum theory, modern physical theory concerned with the emission and absorption of energy by matter and with the motion of material particles; the quantum theory and the theory of relativity together form the theoretical basis of modern physics.
..... Click the link for more information. . In his 1913 model of the hydrogen atom Niels Bohr Bohr, Niels Henrik David , 1885–1962, Danish physicist, one of the foremost scientists of modern physics. He studied at the Univ. of Copenhagen (Ph.D. 1911) and carried on research on the structure of the atom at Cambridge under Sir James J.
..... Click the link for more information. showed that the observed series of lines could be explained by assuming that electrons are restricted to atomic orbits in which their orbital angular momentum momentum , in mechanics, the quantity of motion of a body, specifically the product of the mass of the body and its velocity. Momentum is a vector quantity; i.e., it has both a magnitude and a direction, the direction being the same as that of the velocity vector.
..... Click the link for more information. is an integral multiple of the quantity h/2π, where h is Planck's constant Planck's constant , fundamental constant of the quantum theory. It is represented by the letter h and has a value of 6.63 × 10−34 J-sec. The combination h/2π, denoted by h (called "h-bar"), occurs frequently.
..... Click the link for more information. . The integer multiple (e.g., 1, 2, 3 …) of h/2π is usually called the quantum number and represented by the symbol n.
When an electron changes from an orbit of higher energy (higher angular momentum) to one of lower energy, a photon photon , the particle composing light and other forms of electromagnetic radiation, sometimes called light quantum. The photon has no charge and no mass. About the beginning of the 20th cent.
..... Click the link for more information. of light energy is emitted whose frequency ν is related to the energy difference ΔE by the equation ν=ΔE/h. For hydrogen, the frequencies of the spectral lines are given by ν=cR (1/nf2−1/ni2) where c is the speed of light, R is the Rydberg constant Rydberg constant , physical constant used in studies of the spectrum of a substance. Its value for hydrogen is 109,737.3 cm−1.
..... Click the link for more information. , and nf and ni are the final and initial quantum numbers of the electron orbits (ni is always greater than nf). The series of spectral lines for which nf=1 is known as the Lyman series; that for nf=2 is the Balmer series; that for nf=3 is the Paschen series; that for nf=4 is the Brackett series; and that for nf=5 is the Pfund series. The Bohr theory was not as successful in explaining the spectra of other substances, but later developments of the quantum theory showed that all aspects of atomic and molecular spectra can be explained quantitatively in terms of energy transitions between different allowed quantum states.
spectrum
Arrangement according to wavelength (or frequency) of electromagnetic radiation. The visible, “rainbow” spectrum is the portion of the electromagnetic spectrum that is visible as light to the human eye. Some sources emit only certain wavelengths and produce an emission spectrum of bright lines with dark spaces between. Such line spectra are characteristic of the elements that emit the radiation. A band spectrum consists of groups of wavelengths so close together that the lines appear to form a continuous band. Atoms and molecules absorb certain wavelengths and so remove them from a complete spectrum; the resulting absorption spectrum contains dark lines or bands at these wavelengths.
Higher Frequencies
Frequencies above 40 GHz have not been licensed, but are expected to be made available in the future as the technology is developed to transmit at these smaller wavelengths (higher frequencies). The spectrum can be viewed in meticulous detail from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) by visiting www.fcc.gov/oet/spectrum and www.ntia.doc.gov/osmhome/osmhome.html. See electromagnetic radiation and wave.
To obtain a copy of this insightful report written in 2003, as well as other related articles, visit Werbach's Web site at www.werbach.com. See smart radio.
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| Our eyes perceive a tiny sliver of the electromagnetic spectrum. The wavelengths from (approximately) 400 to 750 nanometers provide us with our physical view of the universe. |
spectrum
spectrum [′spek·trəm]
Spectrum
The term spectrum is applied to any class of similar entities or properties strictly arrayed in order of increasing or decreasing magnitude. In general, a spectrum is a display or plot of intensity of radiation (particles, photons, or acoustic radiation) as a function of mass, momentum, wavelength, frequency, or some other related quantity. For example, a β-ray spectrum represents the distribution in energy or momentum of negative electrons emitted spontaneously by certain radioactive nuclides, and when radionuclides emit α-particles, they produce an α-particle spectrum of one or more characteristic energies. A mass spectrum is produced when charged particles (ionized atoms or molecules) are passed through a mass spectrograph in which electric and magnetic fields deflect the particles according to their charge-to-mass ratios. The distribution of sound-wave energy over a given range of frequencies is also called a spectrum. See Sound
In the domain of electromagnetic radiation, a spectrum is a series of radiant energies arranged in order of wavelength or of frequency. The entire range of frequencies is subdivided into wide intervals in which the waves have some common characteristic of generation or detection, such as the radio-frequency spectrum, infrared spectrum, visible spectrum, ultraviolet spectrum, and x-ray spectrum.
Spectra are also classified according to their origin or mechanism of excitation, as emission, absorption, continuous, line, and band spectra. An emission spectrum is produced whenever the radiations from an excited light source are dispersed. An absorption spectrum is produced against a background of continuous radiation by interposing matter that reduces the intensity of radiation at certain wavelengths or spectral regions. The energies removed from the continuous spectrum by the interposed absorbing medium are precisely those that would be emitted by the medium if properly excited. A continuous spectrum contains an unbroken sequence of waves or frequencies over a long range. Line spectra are discontinuous spectra characteristic of excited atoms and ions, whereas band spectra are characteristic of molecular gases or chemical compounds. See Atomic structure and spectra, Electromagnetic radiation, Line spectrum, Molecular structure and spectra, Spectroscopy
| Spectrum - ZX Spectrum |
Spectrum
in physics, the set of different values that a given physical quantity can take on. Spectra can be continuous or discrete (discontinuous). The concept of a spectrum is applied most often to oscillatory processes. We speak, for example, of oscillation spectra, sound spectra, and optical spectra. In nuclear physics, such concepts as mass spectra, momentum spectra, and energy spectra are used.
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