Campton Scattering: Colour Change Explained

[Zaya Bell]

Colour is defined by frequency/wavelength. Hence whenever they both change, we are to observe a change in colour. But that isn't the case for campton scattering. Or is it?

 

[Vanadium 50]

I assume you mean Compton, and why wouldn't it be? Light is light, no matter how it was produced.

 

[davenn]

Colour is defined by frequency/wavelength.

not really
colour is a very visual / personal perspective thing ... that is 2 people with different eyesight could see the same freq/wavelength as different colours

V50 answered the rest

 

[sophiecentaur]

Colour is defined by frequency/wavelength.

This is a question with two parts.
Perception: Most 'colours' we perceive are made up of a number of different wavelengths. Our eyes are pretty lousy spectrometers - because that would give us no evolutionary advantage and there are no naturally occurring monochromatic sources that ancient humans would (want to) see.
Our perception of colour change is not particularly acute. A just noticeable difference is in the order of 1% change in chromaticity. Any method of producing a 1% change for comparing with an unchanged reference colour would, presumably be detected by an observer under 'reasonable viewing conditions.

Generation: It is difficult to produce big changes of frequency of a beam of light. Have you found out what sort of percentage frequency change that Compton scattering can produce? In my cursory search on Google, I could only find actual figures for higher energies than optical photons. I am sure some PF member will have a better clue about that.