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- Path: sparky!uunet!olivea!spool.mu.edu!vms.csd.mu.edu!5916RAHMANK
- From: 5916rahmank@vms.csd.mu.edu (K. M. A. Rahman)
- Newsgroups: sci.materials
- Subject: Re: Why some materials you can see through?
- Message-ID: <00965314.08C86300@vms.csd.mu.edu>
- Date: 17 Dec 92 03:43:28 GMT
- References: <1992Dec4.082609.16759@gn.ecn.purdue.edu> <1992Dec4.201825.1@stsci.edu> <1992Dec10.172248.28474@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU>,<1992Dec15.100452.1@stsci.edu>
- Reply-To: 5916rahmank@vms.csd.mu.edu
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- Organization: Department of EECE, Marquette University
- Lines: 32
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- In article <1992Dec15.100452.1@stsci.edu>, gawne@stsci.edu writes:
- -
- - I am wondering why some materials are transparency to our eyes?
- - Can anyone give me some hint?
- - Thank you.
- ---------------------------------------
-
- Well, a photon can travel thru anything provided is doesn't get absorbed
- or scattered. Obviously transparent materials don't absorb or scatter
- (some percentage of) the photons incident on them.
-
- So the photon is not getting absorbed. Why? What else do you know about
- solids like glass, such as their electrical conductivity, that might help
- here? Compare this to a metal which is opaque and has a very different
- electrical conductivity.
-
- Finally, why isn't the glass in windows transparent to UV or IR radiation?
- Clue, for UV photon energies the glass responds about like the metals do for
- visible photons.
-
- Enough hints? If you need more, read "Dance of the Solids", a wonderful
- poem by John Updike that was in the 1967 September issue of Scientific
- American.
-
- -Bill Gawne, Space Telescope Science Institute
- ---------------------------------------------------------
-
- Perdon my intervention. I was reading this article with interest.
- I am curious to know how the conductivity of a material is related
- to its transparency. Would you please throw some light on it?
- With thanks,
- -Anis.
-