What Are Will 'O The Wisp and Foo Fighters?

[Leah]

Thank you Everyone! I guess I have little patience with reading books. I have found them opinionative and argumentative and speculative. I do agree that there are "fact" books out there, but I just want answers to my questions right away. Time is a factor for me. The www has opened a door to knowledge for me. This Website, in all it's glory, can keep me occupied for quite some time! It is beautifully done to help educate people. I have been posting in the ABC News.Com Science & Technology Forum, and so far I have learned that Photon is a unit of Light, that Light is an energy, which takes on wave-form. I am beginning to understand that atoms are building blocks, photons are Light, and gases are elements which produce nuclear fusion due to pressure in the core. Also, I have noticed several websites just recently offered in New Threads here. I have plenty to do now with regards to research, i.e. Forgot The Title but it Reads, "While the classical, wavelike behavior of light (interference and diffraction) has been easily observed in the undergraduate laboratories for many years, explicit observation of the quantum nature of light (i.e. photons) is much more difficult". So, my next endeavor will hopefully yield a better understanding of photons. Thank you again. Oh, Beautiful Light! Leah Reinstein

 

[vanesch]

Thank you Everyone! I guess I have little patience with reading books. I have found them opinionative and argumentative and speculative.

It is the ethernal problem in education: how to get the student to learn stuff efficiently without giving the opinion that she/he has to swallow about everything the Great Master is telling him. I think that there is only one solution: that is, the student should start by having confidence in the Great Master, and take, in the beginning, his word for it ! It's like when daddy told you NOT to jump from the 8th floor. Just take his word for it that it is a bad idea . After you've grown up, you'll understand daddy's motives for stopping you, as a toddler, from jumping. It's the same with much of science (and other) education: you cannot question all presented knowledge right from the start. You need to accept first things, until you start to see the picture.

If you have difficulties accepting "revealed truths" then just don't consider them to be "truths" but just "theories". Tell yourself you're going to learn the theory of classical mechanics (whether that has anything to do with the real world or not). Now, you can maybe question whether classical mechanics is "true" or not, but you can certainly not question the authority of a generally recognized reference on classical mechanics on the subject to explain you what classical mechanics is all about. So if that book tells you how things are done *in the theory of classical mechanics*, then that's simply the way it is, in that theory. If they tell you that velocity is the time derivative of position, you cannot protest to that, because that's simply how things are done in classical mechanics.

You might find classical mechanics boring, and you'd like to jump directly to the more fancy things. Too bad, you can't. Before reaching the summit of a mountain, you need to climb it step by step. Physics has a layered structure, and you need to work your way of understanding through each layer. How deep you delve into each issue is a bit your affair, but don't expect to look swiftly at each underlying layer and hope to have a deeper understanding of the next. You can't build a solid castle on sand, and you cannot start riding a bicycle if you don't even know how to walk.

There are many lists of good books around (there's also a lot of junk books, and even more junk websites). Make good use of them.

cheers,
Patrick.

 

[Leah]

Thanks Patrick! "I am but just a kid in a sandbox. I want the biggest piece of Sand I can find. I'll look at that piece first." Leah

 

[selfAdjoint]

Thanks Patrick! "I am but just a kid in a sandbox. I want the biggest piece of Sand I can find. I'll look at that piece first." Leah

That's fine if you want to stay in the sandbox. If you want to play with the big kids, you have to adapt to their ways. We can't just keep giving you single answers to "why is the sky blue" type questions. That uses up our time without providing any lasting benefit to you.

 

[Leah]

You're right. I said I now have enough information from your website to keep me occupied for awhile. Thank You! I have lots of reading to do, so I really don't plan on needing to post a question anytime soon. I'm asking my questions on the other message board I have mentioned before, so as not to bother you. "My Sandbox has many Pieces". I only meant it as an explanation of Life itself. I will do my best not to take up your time. You must decide whether My Thread remains or goes. I would hope you decide the former, but I am Only a Messenger, not a Guardian of the Gate. Thank you. Leah Reinstein

 

[reilly]

Leah -- With your beguiling manner, and off-beat approach you've managed to have quite a few people here dance to your tune. But charm will only carry you so far. Indeed, if you continue to eschew books, you'll never really learn much of anything. Virtually all of the knowledge of physics, science, philosophy,and much else is in published form -- how else do we know what Einstein thought, or the founders of the quantum theory thought?

Physics is a very difficult subject -- most of us who claim to know a modest amount of the subject have spent years of hard study, endless hours with pencil and paper, and gone though more books than we care to admit. Mastery is very difficult to achieve; the charm of dazzling with your dancing through the bon mots of physics will grow less and less attractive with time.

With all due respect,
Reilly Atkinson

 

[Leah]

I can never be as smart as any of you. I now merely walk a path to gain knowledge through questions. Many people have helped me and have answered my questions. Books are wonderful. School is Essential where reading is mandatory. Life is peculiar. With respect to all who have helped me thus far, I am thankful. I understand, Reilly, what you are saying. That my approach to life is a little different than most. "The Dancing is Part of a Light". (I know, no more quotes.) I plan on perusing this wonderful site of knowledge for awhile, so as not to bother you. I highly Respect Your Knowledge and Hard Work in achieving Answers in Physics. Leah

 

[Leah]

I Will Not Blog In this Thread. I just wanted to Direct anyone's Thoughts to My Journal. For I am posting There, now re: Will 'O The Wisp. Thank you.

 

[Leah]

Will 'O The Wisp what it means can be found here:

http://www.worldwidewords.org/weirdwords/ww-wil1.htm

It says, "We know now that the flames are methane (marsh gas) ignited by the traces of hydrogen phosphide sometimes found near decaying organic matter."

So, at least Will 'O The Wisp can be explained!

 

[Skippy]

Maybe I'm a little late to post this... but it sounded like you were wondering how light interacts with atoms and how atoms can create light, plus you said you were learning about photons. So I thought I might as well post some physics concepts for you. Though I'll just have to hope I don't sound confusing. Still, it should be much more concise than what a book would give you.

There are a few ways to create photons (small quanta of light), but there's namely one dominant way that I'll comment on...

First you need to know a few basic things about atoms; Atoms have a center that is called the nucleus. A distance away from the nucleus you'll find electrons, which you can think of as orbiting the nucleus (This is technically wrong, but it makes for an easy picture that works.).

Think of one electron orbiting a nucleus. Depending on the energy the electron has it will orbit at a certain distance away from the nucleus. The more energy it has, the farther away it will orbit. However, there are only discrete values for the distance the electron can orbit. In other words, it can't orbit the nucleus at any distance, it can only orbit at a few select distances and jump between them. So.. the electron can be a distance D1, D2, D3, etc... away from the nucleus.

One last thing. The electron can't maintain an orbit far away from the nucleus. It will "fall" back to the closest orbit it can get to in a short amount of time, if it's far away.

Now if you understand that I can tell you how light works... First how light can be created.

If an electron is far away from the nucleus (say D3) and drops down to being closer to the nucleus (say D1) then the electron will lose energy and emit a photon! Simple as that. The photon will be of a certain wavelength (color of light) depending on how much energy the electron lost.

Next how light can interact with an atom: A photon can hit an atom and be "absorbed" giving the electron more energy (and bumping it up to an orbit that is farther away). Basically the reverse of the above process.

So, how can electrons get into far away orbits if they naturally drop to the closest one? Well the two most common ways are for atoms to collide and bump electrons into higher orbits, and for light to hit an atom and bump the electrons up. Those are the two main ways I can think of.

This small java applet outlines everything I said in a simple animation... there are better ones floating around, but I couldn't find them.

http://webphysics.ph.msstate.edu/javamirror/ipmj/java/atomphoton/

Lastly, just for an example of how a lot of things operate like this...

Glow in the Dark material (like a ball): How this works is that light shines on the ball and raises the electrons to higher orbits. The ball is coated (or composed of) a certain chemical that keeps the electrons from dropping to lower orbits too fast. When you stop shining light on the ball the electrons will drop to lower orbits over a long period of time and make the ball glow. Eventually all the electrons will drop and no more light will be able to be emitted.

 

[Leah]

Thank you for explaining how a photon is created. I am starting to learn that some light phenomena can be explained, and some light phenomena cannot be explained, and that is okay. I am interested in Light, so I need to start reading up on it.

 

[Jonny_trigonometry]

I like to see how excited you are about learning physics. You provide good spirit, but you do jump around to all sorts of topics. To bring things around to the beginning when population inversions were mentioned, now that you have the idea of how an atom emmits and absorbs photons, you can get a grasp of population inversions. It's just a fancy term that means that a sufficiently large portion of atoms in a "popularion" are in an energy state higher than the ground state. This is the way a laser works, the atoms in a laser are induced by adding energy into the system to excite them and send their electrons to higher orbits. Overall, you could say that practically all the atoms are in an excited state. When a photon hits an atom in an excited state, there is a chance that the electron in the atom will drop to a lower energy state, and in the process release a photon in the same direction and frequency as the one that struck the atom to begin with. This process of photon emmission is called "stimulated emmission", the other process where a photon is randomly emitted (and not stimulated by an incomming photon), by the electron falling to a lower energy state is called "spontaneous emmission". For most populations of atoms, where they are mostly in a ground state, incomming phtons are absorbed for the most part, but when most of the atoms are in excited states (as in a population inversion), an incomming photon stimulates the emmission of another photon of equal energy and direction when it strikes an atom. This whole procedure is basically like Light Amplification by a Stimulated Emmission of light, or Radiation (ie. LASER, since light is radiation). When this process continues through the population in a cascade of photons with the same energy and direction you get a light source that has only one frequency and direction. I hope you find this helpful in any way. I hope I'm not too late in explaining what a laser is, since you've already started researching it. Pardon me if I've got any of this wrong, the good folks on the forum will most likely correct any of my mistakes.

 

[Leah]

Thank you. I am trying to understand Light, and the photon. I do go off in different directions (kinda like a photon!), and don't really concentrate on one subject...you're right. So, as silly as this question may be, are all photons created equal? For instance, I see Light from a Star...those photons emit light for a long period of time, and then I see Light from Fire...those photons eventually burn out, and then I see Light from a T.V./Computer/Lightbulb. Please excuse my difficulty in understanding that all Light is the same. It is probably best to assume that I will never understand how it works, but maybe, if you have the time, you can explain the different types of light and how the photon works in each case, if there is an explanation. Thanks! Leah

 

[selfAdjoint]

Thank you. I am trying to understand Light, and the photon. I do go off in different directions (kinda like a photon!), and don't really concentrate on one subject...you're right. So, as silly as this question may be, are all photons created equal? For instance, I see Light from a Star...those photons emit light for a long period of time, and then I see Light from Fire...those photons eventually burn out, and then I see Light from a T.V./Computer/Lightbulb. Please excuse my difficulty in understanding that all Light is the same. It is probably best to assume that I will never understand how it works, but maybe, if you have the time, you can explain the different types of light and how the photon works in each case, if there is an explanation. Thanks! Leah

Leah, all those photons are the same kind of thing. They differ in frequency (and its reciprocal wavelength) but they are otherwise alike. The photons don't "go on forever" or "burn out", rather the processes that produce them continue, like the star or die down, like the fire. And photons don't emit light; they are the light that is emitted.

 

[Hareslade]

hi
may I first say, I'm semi retired now but my training was electronics / design,physics was my best subject really

I've personally seen various types of 'lights' specially in Wiltshire UK, tonight i saw something very close to what people probably call a will o the wisp, a flickering orange light in the grass, around 50 yards away. Its a cold (3 deg C) night, quite damp with misty moisture around, little wind.

Regarding pf rules, can we examine how a flame can occur in moist weather at ground level, orange, flickering light... on chalk grass land... at night..

i've also seen other forms of lights, if you like i can start a different thread on those, see if anyone has any ideas how they might occur.

I must emphasise, i cannot with my own knowledge of e/m etc, understand what the mechanism was for generating these various types of lights, but they are authentic sightings, I don't go in for telling fibs :)

btw these ones I saw are not traditional ball lightning, (given descriptions of same) they are more subtle in their properties.

I do feel they indicate some gaps in our knowledge, maybe someone can help.

 

[Frame Dragger]

Wow... 5 years. That's impressive thread necromancy Hareslade. That's one way of making an impression.

 

[Hareslade]

Frame Dragger;2581872]Wow... 5 years. That's impressive thread necromancy Hareslade. ...

HI .. when one's in deep freeze, time is not relevent.. i thought it was 3 Earth years, anyway.?

I'm on a canal boat in Wiltshire now, in the middle of 'lights' country

Is anyone going to play let's explain weird lights, ? its one of my pet obsessions, what i really want to know is (being electronics based) just what makeable sensors might i use, to gain info. on these things. But even simple sensors like light spectrum analysis are not easy in 'the field' and such things aren't cheap.. unless someones prepared to lend me stuff..

Theory and experiment go together in a loop, but basic -testable- theories are a bit thin on the ground in standard physics?

Incidentally the Japanese were really interested in 'ufo' research a decade back, haven't seen them lately. And ufo doen't mean aliens (ho ho), in my world it means an unidentifiable -but real- phenomena class, massively interesting from a physics point of view, because of the odd habits the lights have.. am i hijacking the thread, should i make another?

 

[Frame Dragger]

HI .. when one's in deep freeze, time is not relevent.. i thought it was 3 Earth years, anyway.?

I'm on a canal boat in Wiltshire now, in the middle of 'lights' country

Is anyone going to play let's explain weird lights, ? its one of my pet obsessions, what i really want to know is (being electronics based) just what makeable sensors might i use, to gain info. on these things. But even simple sensors like light spectrum analysis are not easy in 'the field' and such things aren't cheap.. unless someones prepared to lend me stuff..

Theory and experiment go together in a loop, but basic -testable- theories are a bit thin on the ground in standard physics?

Incidentally the Japanese were really interested in 'ufo' research a decade back, haven't seen them lately. And ufo doen't mean aliens (ho ho), in my world it means an unidentifiable -but real- phenomena class, massively interesting from a physics point of view, because of the odd habits the lights have.. am i hijacking the thread, should i make another?

I don't think you're hijacking the thread, but for all of that making a new one about your partciular interest (or a blog) might be the right move.

 

[ZapperZ]

Please start a new thread in the Skepticism & Debunking forum.

Zz.