3 ms·
>Otherwise, we could just as correctly say that when we look at dog we are seeing the sun or the overhead florescent bulbs; that's where the photons came from
by aphextron 9y ago
>Otherwise, we could just as correctly say that when we look at dog we are seeing the sun or the overhead florescent bulbs; that's where the photons came from
No, they didn't. The energy came from the sun, however the photons which are collected in your retina to form the image of a dog were emitted from the dog itself. "Reflection" is just the stimulation of photon emission via radiation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photoelectric_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photoelectric_effect
- jessriedel 9y agoYou're gesturing at an unconvincing objection: that there is no difference between reflection and emission because there is a sense in which light passing through matter is continuously being absorbed and re-emitted. (I say "gesturing" because you don't actually know the physics; it is completely different than either stimulated emission or the photoelectric effect, which you could tell by reading the Wikipedia articles.) Explaining why this objection is boring and unconvincing would ultimately be a long discussion in the philosophy of science ("how can we keep using folk terminology that presumes a sharp devision between two concepts when a theory of physics suggests they are actually just part of a continuum?"), but you can get a sense of that by noticing that emission generally involves a change in the frequency of light while reflection does not.
- aphextron 9y ago>(I say "gesturing" because you don't actually know the physics; it is completely different than either stimulated emission or the photoelectric effect, which you could tell by reading the Wikipedia articles.) Well, clearly you're a fucking idiot. See, I can use ad hominem to make a meaningless non-point as well.