How does fire produce light? How does anything hot produce light? It might be simple but I have no clue…
In: Physics
Light in general is produced by charged particles jiggling. Electrons are way lighter than protons, and those are the only two common charged particles, so electrons are easier to jiggle. In hot objects, the electrons get jiggled by particles colliding into each other. Enough heat generates sufficiently fast jiggling to make visible light. This is how fire and incandescent bulbs make light, as well as the sun for the most part. Other methods include using clever chemistry and high voltage to jiggle electrons. These two methods both tend to generate very precise frequencies of light, and are used in LEDs and fluorescent lights respectively.
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