Chemistry Video 5 Flashcards
Issac Newton
Worked with prisms, showed that white light contains all the colours of the rainbow. He used a corpuscular model, which says that light is composed of particles
Christiaan Huygens
He used a wave model to describe reflection and refraction.
Thomas Young
Light travelling through narrow slits produced interference patterns that could only be explained using a wave model
James Clerk Maxwell
Developed theory of magnetic radiation and showed that visible light is only a tiny portion of the electromagnetic spectrum
Classical physics in 19th century
Newton’s laws governed particles of matter. Maxwell’s equations governed waves of light. This view was was incorrect. In reality, both matter and light exhibit wave-particle duality.
Newton’s classical mechanics and Maxwell’s classical electrodynamics is limited
Wave
Oscillations that transport energy from one place to another. The molecules stay in place but the kinetic energy travels. Has amplitude, wavelength, crest, trough, frequency
Electromagnetic spectrum
Longer wavelength = decreased frequency
Shorter wavelength = greater frequency = greater energy
Very short wavelengths transmit a lot of energy. Gamma rays have the shortest wavelength.
Very long wavelengths transmit very little energy. Radio waves have the longest wavelength.
Composition of light
Simultaneously both wave-like and particle-like properties. Called wave-particle duality.
Max Planck
Solved the Ultraviolet Catastrophe, which examined the distribution of light from the sun. Realized that the light received did not conform to mathematical expectations, which predicted much more UV light than what is actually received.
Planck introduced concept of quantization of energy, where vibrational energies of atoms cannot possess absolutely any arbitrary value from a spectrum of values. The values must be quantized, AKA possessing a multiple of a discrete unit of energy. This allowed the math to conform to observations of light
Photoelectric effect
Electrons are ejected from metal when irradiated with light above a threshold frequency. Below a certain threshold frequency of light, no matter how intense the light beam was, no electron was ejected. Above the threshold frequency, the electron was always ejected no matter how weak the beam was.
Albert Einstein
Explained photoelectric effect using principles developed by Planck when he worked with black body radiation. Stated that light is quantized. Describes light as stream of particles called photos, whose energy depend on their frequency. E = hv, where v is frequency and h is Planck’s constant.
Referring to photoelectric effect, an electron is ejected if a singular photon of sufficient energy strikes the metal, which is why the intensity of the beam is irrelevant.
Therefore, intensity of light corresponds with number of photons, rather than wave amplitude
Additionally, the greater the brightness, the greater the number of electrons ejected. Brighter light = more photons = higher likelihood that photons will collide with electrons
Photons are quanta, which are discrete fundamental units of energy
Photoelectric effect equation and work function
Equation: Kinetic energy of electron expelled from atom = Energy of the photon - work function
Work function is the minimum energy required to expel an electron from the atom. To expel an energized electron, the kinetic energy of the electron must be greater than 0. So, the energy of the photon must be greater than the work function.
Line spectra
When materials are heated, they radiate some heat off as light. The light will have a range of energy called a continuous spectrum. Some gases will not display a continuous spectrum, and will generate a line spectra. The line spectra shows only specific values for the light emitted, which are represented by certain lines, which each correspond to the specific wavelengths of light emitted.
Johann Balmer
Derived an equation (mathematical model) that related the 4 lines in the visible spectrum of hydrogen. “k” is a constant and “n” is one of four integers.
Johannes Rydberg
There were other lines found in the UV and IR regions for hydrogen. He generalized Balmer’s work to predict all of hydrogen’s emission lines, where “n” are integers and “R” is the Rydberg constant. This mathematical formula was developed to predict the numbers accurately before a conceptual explanation was offered for the mathematical truth