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A note on the Hydrogen spectrum

** This note was inspired from a comment on one of our previous post. Do check it out before you read this one.

The emission spectrum of atomic hydrogen is given by this amazing spectral series diagram:

Let’s take a closer look at only the visible portion of the spectrum i.e the Balmer series.

If a hydrogen lamp and a diffraction grating just happen to be with you, you can take a look at the hydrogen lamp through the diffraction grating, these lines are what you would see:

Source

These are known emission lines and they occur when the hydrogen atoms in the lamp return to a state of lower energy from an excited energy state.

Representation of emission and absorption using the Bohr’s model

Here’s another scenario that could also happen:

You have a bright source of light with a continuous spectrum and in between the source and the screen, you introduce a gas (here, sodium)

Source: Harvard Natural sciences

The gas absorbs light at particular frequencies and therefore we get dark lines in the spectrum.

This is known as absorption line. The following diagram summarizes what was told thus-far in a single image:

The absorption and emission spectrum for hydrogen look like so :

Stars and Hydrogen

One of the comments from the previous post was to show raw spectrum data of what was being presented to get a better visual aid.

Therefore,the following spectrum is a spectrum of a star taken from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS)

Plot of wavelength vs median-flux

Here’s the spectrum with all the absorption lines labelled:

Source: SDSS

You can clearly see the Balmer series of hydrogen beautifully encoded in this spectrum that was taken from a star that is light-years away.

And astronomers learn to grow and love these lines and identify them immediately in any spectrum, for they give you crucial information about the nature of the star, its age, its composition and so much more.

Source: xkcd

Have a great day!

*If you squint your eyes a bit more you can find other absorption lines from other atoms embedded in the spectrum as well.

#chemistry #physical chemistry #emission spectra #absorption spectra

lilnightwing

jamesspidercat

just-evo-now

What an absolute unit.

shabbytigers

Ian Robinson, head of the National Physical Laboratory’s engineering measurement division said, “One key reason for doing this work is to provide international security. If the Pavillon de Breteuil” — where the IPK is stored — “burned down tomorrow and the kilogram in its vaults melted, we would have no reference left for the world’s metric weights system. There would be chaos. The current definition of the kilogram is the weight of that cylinder in Paris, after all. And that’s just not good enough for international science.” [x]

there would be chaos

coasttocoastlikebutteredtoast

In other words, “BIMPin Ain’t Easy”.

edderkopper

You folks need to go to mass.

#yeah science!#physics #SI units

mindblowingscience

Urgent changes needed to cut risk of extreme heat, drought, floods and poverty, says IPCC

In a stark new warning, the world’s leading climate scientists have shown that global warming must be kept to a maximum of 1.5C to lessen the risk of drought, floods, extreme heat and poverty for hundreds of millions of people.

The authors of the landmark report by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released on Monday say urgent and unprecedented changes are needed to reach the target, which they say is affordable and feasible although it lies at the most ambitious end of the Paris agreement pledge to keep temperatures between 1.5C and 2C.

The half-degree difference could also prevent corals from being completely eradicated and ease pressure on the Arctic, according to the 1.5C study, which was launched in Incheon in South Korea after approval at a final plenary of all 195 countries that saw delegates hugging one another, with some in tears.

“It’s a line in the sand and what it says to our species is that this is the moment and we must act now,” said Debra Roberts, a co-chair of the working group on impacts. “This is the largest clarion bell from the science community and I hope it mobilises people and dents the mood of complacency.”

allthecanadianpolitics

Now is NOT the time to buy and build a massive Oil Pipeline, Justin Trudeau.

#climate change

scishow

This star has been puzzling astronomers for decades.

#earth and space science #chemistry #physics #star spectra #elements #stars #scishow

fyphysica

Fluorescent lamp with and without phosphor coating

When an electric current is passed through the mercury vapor that is present inside the Fluorescent lamp, it excites it and produces short-wave ultraviolet light (LEFT).

But a phosphor coating on the inside of the lamp makes it glow white (RIGHT). The type of phosphor coating dictates the color of lamp

Source

For example, in the tube above a coating of red phosphor is applied the right, followed by a band of green, a band of blue, then with all three mixed together to produce white light, and finally on the left an uncoated region showing the mercury discharge inside.

And that’s how we get Fluorescent lamps of different colors!

* More on the working of Fluorescent lamps

#physics #yeah science!.#optics #physical chemistry

curiosamathematica

Moo-thematics.

#yeah math!#functions

did-you-know

About 1% of the static in between the channels of an FM radio or an old analog TV is leftover radiation from the Big Bang. Source Source 2 Source 3

#Yeah science!#earth and space science #space #electromagnetic radiation

thewriterkb

The skull of a child before the eruption of the adult teeth.

Via Stefan Schäfer and Gizmodo.

#Yeah science!#biology #anatomy #bones

justbadpuns

Jesus christ

memewhore

#yeah science!#chemistry #physics #particle physics

teejay82

#Repost @teacher_science_life with @get_repost

botanyshitposts

so uhhhhhh i know this is a plant blog but realtalk lads im a little freaked out by that wild ass new organ discovered in our bodies according to a paper published literally yesterday am i right my lads, my bois, lmao hhaha

botanyshitposts

(as of 3/28/2018, paper was published in the reputable international research journal “Nature” on 3/27/2018, publication here, study was started in 2013) ok so like uhhh this is my rough translation of the paper they published using my current level of biological knowledge, if anyone else has a more in depth understanding with human anatomy things and would like to add on with anything i might have missed feel free to add but this is my takeaway:

-scientists were looking at some stuff in the inside of a bile duct they were studying in a live patient (this will be important later) using a laser that lets them see the cells in real time. they injected some stuff into the duct and saw the spaces inbetween the cells fill up with fluid in strange, tube-like structures that didn’t correspond with what they expected to be there, so they sectioned and froze them to study them closer; they realized that upon closer inspection, the fluid-filled places were VERY small collagen tubes forming a complex matrix of bundles surrounded by a weird cell covering that seemed to connect them to one another. they called this the Interstitium.

-they sectioned some more places where squeezy things might happen, like the inner linings of the bladder, lungs, lymph nodes, and the soft tissue enclosing our muscles, filled them with the same indicator, and hyper froze them like they did to the first sample and found the same weird matrix of fluid-filled tubing:

they concluded from what they found from this that:

1. our previous thought of the space inbetween the cells in these parts of the body, which we thought were just kinda like, there or whatever doing nothing (a series of spaces that were already called the Interstitium that were largely ignored), are actually full of complex tubing running through a ton of very important parts of your body

2. when the structures they’re chilling around (like your bladder and bowel) contract, the fluid moves around all weird

3. the reason this wasn’t discovered before is because when the tubes are squished too hard- like when scientists are cutting into them- they have a tendency to collapse really easily, especially when being treated with chemicals for microscope use, giving the impression of the kind of tissues that we’ve traditionally seen in specimens and thought of being in these sensitive areas (closely compact and dense cell mats). it turns out that in living people, these tubes run between the cells carrying fluid; the scientists were able to see this initially in live patients using the above mentioned laser technology, and then took live biopsies by quickly freezing the cells in place before removal to prevent their collapse.

4. yes, these can move cancer cells around, which is HUGE seeing as they seem to enclose a LOT of important and delicate muscles in our bodies in one giant, complex system. when they looked at it in cancer patients, the tumors they found seemed to kind of be….leaking….into them…..because the tumors were putting pressure on the fluid tubes….which easily collapse…..and move things that fall into the fluid around….

5. the scientists also explored things like hernias and colon damage in relation to these, but unfortunately this is where my translation powers run out as non-plant-related terminology starts being used lmao im so sorry im like this

tl;dr: the membranes that surround some really important parts of squishy things like our stomach, bowels, colon, lungs, muscles, etc are full of very delicate and complex tubing that runs in a weirdly complex system to other important squishy things throughout our bodies and looks like a weird organ that we didn’t know was there before (or like, we knew about it, we just didn’t know it was so…connected and uh…organy). also it seems to have an impact on the spread of cancer throughout these regions

here’s the paper again if you want to have a read and see pics of the tubing itself and draw more in depth conclusions from it lmao

shadowphoenixrider

Graduate of Biomedical Science here; this paper is pretty much understandable to me.

You’ve picked out the main stuff, but here’s some things I think is very interesting:

The discovery of these spaces dramatically expands the lymphatic system. Basically, this is how the lymph nodes are connected to the rest of the body. Before it was kinda like ‘yeah here are the lymph nodes, and the lymph fluid kinda goes to the somehow? idk’. But now we have a whole system. It’s like discovering the entire circulatory system when before you only had the heart to work with.

This is super important for cancers and detecting when a cancer has spread (metastasised, in the lingo). They talk about the spread of cancers into the deeper tissues (such as stomach cancers invading their submucosal tissue and skin cancers pentrating deeper into the dermis layers), but what is most important is that they detected the cancers spreading into the interstitial spaces before there was anything to detect within the lymph nodes. This is super important, as usually lymph node biopsies are done to detect if a cancer is spreading; this is before that very stage. This is literally catching cancers in the act of spreading before they’ve hit another organ this is fucking incredible.

It’s providing an explanation for oedema (or edema, for my US followers), which is the build-up of fluid in certain areas of the body (usually the lower limbs, but it can be anywhere). For so long it’s been like ‘I guess there’s something wrong with your blood vessels??’ but like the lymphatic system, we’ve now got another explanation. ‘Ah, okay, there’s something going down in your interstitial fluid!’ A more effective diagnosis and treatment could be made, Bam! Enrich more people’s lives.

They may play a role in how scar formation works. Some scar tissue can get a bit crazy and grow too much, meaning it needs to be cut away as it hinders movement or it just fucking painful. Perhaps the interstitial tubing/fluid plays a role in this, considering collagen is used in scar tissue, and these spaces are full of it.

There’s clearly communication between these spaces and the digestive system, as they found tattoo pigment from the intestines in these spaces. Tattooing in the intestine is done to mark lesions for removal or observation later on, so the fact this pigment is actively moving out of the digestive system and else means it could play a role in disease we don’t know much about, like inflammatory bowel conditions.

Basically, THIS IS FUCKING HUGE AND COULD POTENTIALLY CHANGE THE GAME IN A BIG WAY.

Thank you OP for sharing this, I haven’t nerded out and been so fascinated by a study in a long time.

ALSO GOOD ON YOU NATURE FOR MAKING THE FULL ARTICLE FREE. HONOUR ON YOU AND YOUR COWS.

styna

This feels like it’s going to be very important for us spoonies too.

#Yeah science!#biology #cell biology #histology

thewieneryears-deactivated20130

Moss Graffiti: A How To Guide

missythemermaid

are you fucking for real

revesducirque

Imagine being the criminal who returns weekly to make sure his fucking plant art is doing alright

arthyradio

Later

atombombbunny

I found it! I fucking found it! In my fucking dash! Nothing can stop me now! *EVIL GIGGLES*

male-witch

OMG SAME RIGHT I SAW IT A YEAR AGO AND WAS UPSET I COULDNT FIND IT AGAIN

fyphysica

A note on triple and critical points

The Pressure - Temperature of a pure substance is commonly plotted as follows:

When you take a look at such a graph, there are two points on it that are particularly fascinating. (rest are all boundaries) : The Triple and Critical point.

Most people might be familiar with a triple point. This is where the solid liquid and gaseous phase are in equilibrium.

In the above animation, Gas phase is at the Top half of the container, Liquid at the bottom and Solid phase is sandwiched between the two phases.

If one keeps moving past the triple point and along the liquid vapor boundary line on the P-T diagram, one would notice that this boundary line terminates at a distinct temperature and pressure !!!

This point is known as a Critical point.

Beyond this point distinct liquid and gas phases do not exist and the substance is known as a super-critical fluid.

In order to understand what that really means, watch the following didactic demonstration of a super-critical fluid transition: (It is absolutely beautiful)

One of the reasons why the critical point is crucial is that close of the critical point, small changes in pressure or temperature result in large changes in density. And industries love to take advantage of this to fine tune their processing methods.**

Have a good one!

* We have discussed the phase diagrams for only pure substances here. But phase diagrams for mixtures are interesting too. Check this out.

** Decaffeinating coffee + Video demonstration of decaffeinating using Supercritical CO2

#yeah science!#chemistry #physical chemistry #states #solid #liquid #gas #pressure #temperature #critical point #super-critical fluid

fyphysica

The Tale of Earth and it’s sister Theia.

Have you found it weird that the earth’s axis is tilted by 23.5 degrees and wondered what led to this? Wait, Where did the moon come from?

Well, Here’s what scientists have theorized.

The Giant Impact Hypothesis

Theia, a mars sized planet collided ( it glanced and thankfully did not collide head on, else it would have destroyed earth ) with the Earth around 4.553 billion years ago.