does anyone know how light is absorbed or any resources that could help me find out this information?
2006-11-27 01:09:47 · 4 answers · asked by nik456 3 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Physics
It is absorbed as heat.
2006-11-27 01:11:39 · answer #1 · answered by science teacher 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
the only answer i can come up with for that is that light is absorbed by transforming it's energy into a different kind of kinetic energy. Think, the dash in a car heats up when exposed to light (some of the light is reflected while some of it is absorbed). This means that light energy is transformed into heat energy. When the dash becomes supersaturated with heat energy, it then release the heat. The heat that you feel coming off of the dash in really just the transformed light energy and then the heat energy is disapated and used in other forms. Hope i was helpful!
2006-11-27 01:15:06 · answer #2 · answered by Royal R 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
There are a number of ways that light can be absorbed and turned into another form of energy. Heat is pretty obvious but it can also interact with semi-conductors to generate a current (solar cell) or it can be turned into chemical energy (a leaf/photosynthesis) or it can knock electrons off a metal object or be absorbed by atoms or molecules to change their state of motion. I'm sure there are others but these are the few that come to mind immediately.
2006-11-27 01:18:41 · answer #3 · answered by Gene 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
usualy the way that light is absorbed by a material is that the incident photon hits an electron. The energy of the photon (a little packet of light) is transfered to the electron rasing it to an excited state.
That electron then goes to a de-excited state by relesing one or more phonons. Many of these will be in the infered spectrum... and that is the same thing as heat.
2006-11-27 01:25:42 · answer #4 · answered by farrell_stu 4 · 1⤊ 0⤋