I searched for it but couldn’t get anything.
I know that if some material is a shade of green colour then light of every other wavelength other than that shade is absorbed.
Also that the colour appears due to the visible electromagnetic radiation by de-excitation of electrons.
What I don’t understand is:
Why do electrons keep oscillating between higher and lower states?
Electrons can move from one level to another level by emitting photons of different energy. For example for level 5 to level 1, it can go 5->3->1 or 5->4->3->2->1. So why is the apparent colour consistent?
A blue pigment absorbs yellow light. So electrons absorb yellow light to excite but give off blue when de-exciting for the same transition. How does this hold conservation of energy?
Would there be any observed colour difference if the same light bulb is kept in a blue room with blue objects and then a yellow room with same blue objects?
Thanks for helping.
In: Chemistry
>Electrons can move from one level to another level by emitting photons of different energy. For example for level 5 to level 1, it can go 5->3->1 or 5->4->3->2->1. So why is the apparent colour consistent?
It wouldn’t be. The energy of the photon would correspond to the energy of one transition. So going straight from 5>1 would lead to emission of one large energy photon. Making 5 steps down to level 1 would lead to the emission of 5 lower energy photons, probably with different energies each. Because energy is related to wavelength, they would have different colours.
You can’t move from one level up to another by absorbing a yellow photon and down from the same level to the original by emitting a blue one. But because there are lots of different energy levels within atoms or molecules. It’s possible for the same atom to emit or absorb photons of different colour. So an atom could absorb a high energy blue photon and jump from level 1 to level 5 and then emit a lower energy yellow photon and drop back down to say level 3.
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