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Physics
Classical Physics
Electromagnetism
How a solid body emits a lower frequency photon than absorbed
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[QUOTE="Drakkith, post: 6060973, member: 272035"] No, not necessarily. Once a molecule has absorbed energy and started vibrating, rotating, etc, it can often get rid of that energy in a continuous manner instead of a discrete manner. For example a molecule can collide with another molecule and lose half of the energy that it absorbed. Or a third. Or some other fraction. Or it could gain even more energy. This is only an accurate description for single atoms. Molecules have more degrees of freedom in which to interact and, and the larger the molecule the more degrees of freedom it has. This means that an electron can lose energy in more ways than just emitting a photon. Imagine that a photon is absorbed and the energy is transferred to the molecule in the form of the rotation of part of the molecule around another part. A collision between this molecule and another could transfer that rotational energy into kinetic energy for the 2nd molecule, sort of like a bat hitting a ball. [/QUOTE]
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Classical Physics
Electromagnetism
How a solid body emits a lower frequency photon than absorbed
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