Recent content by iamconfused

I also read that oil, if at a higher temperature, becomes natural gas. I'm confused then where coal fits into this. Intuitively, I could imagine a scenario where more heat would make liquid from solid, and even more heat makes gas...but it seems you are saying then that you go from liquid, coal...

So I'm learning in a class that coal is made when land plants (in swamps) die and then get buried in sediments, and with the Earth's pressure/temperature the plants become coal. Then I learned that when ocean plants (like algae and plankton) die, they also get buried in sediments in the sea...

Thank you! I think the non radiative relaxation vs spontaneous emission part was one of the big things I was missing!

Thank you everyone for your replies! They were very helpful! I will have to sit and think about these more to fully grasp everything but I definitely feel I understand things a little better now.

I was actually quoting what my professor said in class, he wrote it on the board as visible light —>absorption—> IR + heat. He was trying to separate the different effects IR and visible light can have on a warming planet, so he was ignoring IR and just talking about how visible light can get...

Interesting, could you expand on how the charged particles accelerating/decelerating leads to the creation of IR?

I'm confused on how something can absorb visible light and release heat. Specifically, I'm confused how the Earth absorbs visible light and emits IR + heat. I'm in a class (about global warming) for non-science majors and don't have much of a background in science, so I would appreciate...

I guess I'm not really thinking about a single photon, but a group of photons from one frequency of light. Let's say we have a group of photons whose frequency is all the same, and that CO2 absorbs that particular frequency. I was told that if the CO2 was warm (such as if they are from a lower...

Hi all, I am hoping someone could clear up a concept that doesn't make sense to me. I am thinking in terms of a blackbody diagram, which is "Intensity" on the y-axis and wavelength on the x axis. I understand that when you heat something to a higher temperature, the curves shift to shorter...