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Re: Quantum question?



At 05:25 PM 1/26/00 -0600, Cliff Parker wrote:
... the probability for the energy changes
represented by the dark space between spectral lines is extremely
low. Therefore any light generated with such energy would be
very infrequent and not detectable with normal means. How did I
do?

Just fine.

Actually, the dark between spectral lines isn't really "extremely"
dark. Spectral lines have a decidedly nonzero width, which means they have
tails that fall off rather slowly as you go away from the center frequency.

If you consider the reactive part (as opposed to the absorptive part) of
the lineshape, it falls off even more slowly. The dispersive index of
refraction of materials such as lead crystal is attributable to the tails
of resonances that are centered just above the visible frequency range.