Which line is stonger? orange, green or blue?

[Brown Arrow]

Homework Statement

hey,

i just wanted to know which line is stronger: orange, green or blue(i mean light which one has a stronger line? )

how would you know it?


thanks in advance
BA

Homework Equations

N/a

The Attempt at a Solution

I'm not sure how to approach it do i look for high wavelength or higher frequency?

 

[Brown Arrow]

is the answer Blue since it has shorter wave length?

 

[SammyS]

What do you mean by the word "stronger"? Give us some context.

 

[Brown Arrow]

well i doing an experiment about photo current so first i had to vary the intensity of green light and take measurements to find stopping potential.

next it says "using one of the stronger lines, determine the photo current as a function of light intensity "

so I am assuming that they are talking about the intensity hence the wave length

 

[Brown Arrow]

i guess they mean more energetic :/

 

[pergradus]

No. Blue photons carry the greatest energy, but intensity is completely independent of photon energy. Intensity is the photon flux of a beam of light (assuming we're staying with the particle picture).

"Stronger" in this case probably is referring to blue light, but saying blue light has greater intensity than green has no meaning.

 

[SammyS]

Intensity and wavelength are completely different things.

What are you using for a light source?

 

[Brown Arrow]

spectrun of Hg ...i for get the name of the lamp ... i think it was a Mercury lamp

 

[I like Serena]

spectrun of Hg ...i for get the name of the lamp ... i think it was a Mercury lamp

Well, looking at the spectrum of a mercury lamp (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury-vapor_lamp), it seems to me that the violet line at 430 nm has the most "spectral power".

However, since the human eye is most sensitive to green light (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIE_1931_color_space), the green line will look the most bright.

I guess it's rather important what you need it for. ;).