Author: Lou Bloomfield

Why is incandescent lighting better in residential construction than metal halid…

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Why is incandescent lighting better in residential construction than metal halide, high-pressure sodium, or mercury vapor lighting systems? — JC, Halifax, Nova Scotia

While incandescent lighting isn’t nearly as energy efficient as those other light systems, it produces a more eye pleasing light than some of the alternatives. Our eyes are optimized for sunlight, so that we find the spectrum of light from hot objects particularly pleasant. The heart of an incandescent bulb is a hot tungsten filament. High-pressure arc lamps such as sodium vapor or mercury vapor lamps (metal halide lamps are just somewhat color-corrected high pressure mercury vapor lamps) produce a much less even spectrum of light. High-pressure sodium vapor lamps are wonderfully energy efficient, but their light is orange or pink. High-pressure mercury vapor lamps are also quite energy efficient, but their light is somewhat bluish. Even metal halide lamps aren’t quite white. The other problem with high-pressure arc lamps is that they take time to warm up and then can’t be restarted until they cool off. They’re best in applications that don’t require them to be turned on or off frequently.

A much better choice, both in terms of energy efficiency and light color, is a fluorescent or compact fluorescent lamp. Such lamps typically use less than 25% of the energy required for comparable incandescent lighting, provide excellent color rendering that can be chosen to match that of incandescent lighting, and they last much longer than incandescent bulbs. Even though compact fluorescent lamps are more expensive than incandescent bulbs up front, they last so much longer and save so much energy that each one typically saves you about $45 over its working life.

How does an air conditioner work?

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How does an air conditioner work? — RL

An air conditioner uses a condensable working fluid—a chemical that easily converts from a gas to a liquid and vice versa—to transfer heat from the air inside of a home to the outside air. This process involves three major components and at least one fan. The three major components are a compressor, a condenser, and an evaporator. The compressor and condenser are usually located on the outside air portion of the air conditioner while the evaporator is located on the inside air portion. The working fluid passes through the insides of these three components in order, over and over again, so I’ll start examining what happens to the working fluid as it enters the compressor.

The working fluid arrives at the compressor as a cool, low pressure gas. The compressor squeezes this working fluid, packing its molecules more tightly together so that their density and pressure increase. The squeezing process also does work on the working fluid, increasing its energy and therefore its temperature. The working fluid leaves the compressor as a hot, high-pressure gas and flows into the condenser. The condenser has metal fins all around it that assist the working fluid in transferring heat to the surrounding outdoor air. As this transfer takes place, the closely spaced molecules of the working fluid begin to stick to one another, releasing additional thermal energy into the surrounding air and causing the working fluid to transform into a liquid. By the time the working fluid leaves the condenser, its temperature has almost dropped back down to the outdoor temperature but it is now a liquid rather than a gas.

This high pressure liquid then flows into the evaporator through a narrow orifice. This orifice allows the liquid’s pressure to drop so that it begins to evaporate into a gas. As it evaporates, it extracts heat from the air around the evaporator because that heat is needed to separate the molecules of the working fluid. Like the condenser, the evaporator has metal fins to assist it in exchanging thermal energy with the surrounding air. By the time the working fluid leaves the evaporator, it is a cool, low-pressure gas. It then returns to the compressor to begin its trip all over again.

Overall, the working fluid releases heat into the outside air and absorbs heat from the inside air. The direction of heat transfer, from a cooler region to a hotter region, is the reverse of normal and requires an input of ordered energy so that it doesn’t violate the second law of thermodynamics (the disorder of an isolated system can never decrease). This ordered energy is used to operate the compressor and is converted into thermal energy in the process. This additional disordered thermal energy enters the outside air and makes up for the additional order that’s given to the indoor air as that air is cooled.

What is the difference between crystal and glass?

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What is the difference between crystal and glass?

The “crystal” that’s used in fine glassware is actually a glass, but it is chemically different from the glass that’s used in more common glassware. Both materials are formed by melting together a mixture of silicon dioxide (also called quartz or silica) and other chemicals and both are glasses, meaning that their atoms are arranged haphazardly and not in the crystalline lattices of such materials as salt or sugar. The chemicals that are added to silicon dioxide to make normal glassware—sodium oxide and calcium oxide—make the glass easier to melt and work with at the expense of strength and increased damping. That’s why normal glassware is relatively soft and emits a dull sound when you rap it; it experiences lots of internal friction. The chemicals added to silicon dioxide to make “crystal” glassware include lead oxide, which makes the glass easier to melt and soft enough to cut and shape easily. However, lead “crystal” glassware has less internal damping than ordinary glassware and emits a ringing tone when you rap it because it experiences very little internal friction.

A company claims that if you place their sealed liquid-filled plastic ball into …

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A company claims that if you place their sealed liquid-filled plastic ball into your washing machine, you can eliminate the need for caustic detergents, improving the ecology and saving the planet. The claim is that this ball changes the ionic charge of the water and “magically releases” the dirt from your clothing. Is it possible to use ions to clean as well or better than detergent? — RO, Garden City, MI

I’m afraid that this claim is nonsense and, like the stone in “stone soup,” the ball does nothing at all. The old-time medicine show didn’t really disappear, it just evolved into a more modern form. Since the ball doesn’t add or remove chemicals from the water, it can’t alter the numbers of neutral and ionic particles in the water. But ions have very little to do with how water cleans clothes anyway. Water is already a wonderful solvent for salts and sugars, so you can clean many soils from your clothes with just water alone. But water is a poor solvent for oils and fats because oil and fat molecules don’t bind well to water molecules. That’s where detergents come into play—they form shells called micelles around the oil and fat molecules and render those molecules soluble in water. Without detergents, you’ll have trouble cleaning oils and fats from your clothes. Since oils and fats aren’t affected one way or the other by ions, even the ball’s claimed activity won’t help them to dissolve in the water.

How do radios work?

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How do radios work?

A radio station launches a radio wave by moving electric charges rhythmically up and down their antenna. As this electric charge accelerates back and forth, it produces a changing electric field—a structure in space that pushes on electric charges—and a changing magnetic field—a structure in space that pushes on magnetic poles. Because the electric field changes with time, it creates the magnetic field and because the magnetic field changes with time, it creates the electric field. The two travel off across space as a pair, endlessly recreating one another in an electromagnetic wave that will continue to the ends of the universe. However, when this wave encounters the antenna of your radio, its electric field begins to push electric charges up and down on that antenna. Your radio senses this motion of electric charges and thus detects the passing radio wave.

To convey audio information (sound) to you radio, the radio station makes one of several changes to the radio wave it transmits. In the AM or Amplitude Modulation technique, it adjusts the amount of charge it moves up and down its antenna, and hence the strength of its radio wave, in order to signal which way to move the speaker of your radio. These movements of the speaker are what cause your radio to emit sound. In the FM or Frequency Modulation technique, the radio station adjusts the precise frequency at which it moves charge up and down its antenna. Your radio senses these slight changes in frequency and moves its speaker accordingly.

Assuming microwave ovens cook on the principle of “moist” heat cookery, what a…

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Assuming microwave ovens cook on the principle of “moist” heat cookery, what are the general effects of microwave cooking on various foods, including effects on chemical structure? — EJ, Sydney, Australia

Microwave ovens cook by depositing thermal energy in the water molecules, which isn’t the same as cooking food in moist hot air. Microwave cooking tends to heat food uniformly throughout where as more conventional “moist” heat cooking still heats food from the outside in. Nonetheless, the chemical effects on food are very similar for both types of cooking. Virtually all of these effects are caused by elevating the temperatures of the food. I’m not an expert on the chemistry of cooking, but elevated temperatures certainly denature proteins and caramelize sugars.

I know that photons are particles of light

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I know that photons are particles of light—but how are photons related to the “excited” electrons in the atoms of a gas discharge?

An atom in a gas discharge emits light when one of its electrons shifts from an orbital with extra energy into an empty orbital in which it will have less energy. Since an electron can only travel around the atom’s nucleus in an allowed orbit—an orbital—and the energy it has while in that orbital is very specifically defined, such a shift from one orbital to another results in the emission of a photon of light with a very specific energy. Because a photon’s energy is directly proportional to the frequency of the light, and light’s frequency and wavelength are related by the speed of light, the amount of energy the electron gives up in shifting from one orbital to another determines the photon’s energy, frequency, and wavelength.

When you were saying that even humans travel as waves (which I can picture), is …

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When you were saying that even humans travel as waves (which I can picture), is this the theory behind how the people in the show Startrek are “beamed” to certain planets and back to the ship?

The fact that all objects, including people, travel as waves in our universe is probably not what the writers of Startrek had in mind when they “invented” the transporter. In Startrek, the transporter seems to disassemble the people involved at one location and then reconstruct them at another. That disassembly/reassembly process is purely science fiction while the wave propagation of matter is quite real. We never notice this wave propagation for large objects because their wave effects are too small to detect and because watching an object propagate prevents its wave properties from having any significant consequences. Each observation of an object tends to localize it and minimize its wave properties, so that watching an object moves makes the effects of its wave properties minimal.

When an object is free falling, I understand that the earth’s gravity causes its…

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When an object is free falling, I understand that the earth’s gravity causes its velocity to increase at 10 meters/second2 in the downward direction. Is there a point at which this object would reach a “terminal velocity” in the earth’s atmosphere and cease to accelerate? — CS, Sykesville, MD

Yes, most objects will reach a terminal velocity and stop accelerating downward. The faster an object drops, the more air resistance it experiences. This air resistance pushes the object upward and at least partially cancels the downward force of gravity—the object’s weight. When the object’s downward speed becomes high enough, the upward air resistance force exactly cancels the object’s downward weight. At that point, the object experiences zero net force and it no longer accelerates. Instead, it descends at a constant downward velocity—its terminal velocity. This terminal velocity is determined partly by the object’s density and size and partly by its aerodynamics. Large, dense, and aerodynamic objects tend to have very large terminal velocities while small, low-density, non-aerodynamic objects tend to have very small terminal velocities.

When raisins are added to a solution containing water, baking soda, and vinegar,…

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When raisins are added to a solution containing water, baking soda, and vinegar, why do the raisins dance? — RE, Troy, IL

Baking soda and vinegar react in water to release carbon dioxide molecules. If the chemicals are sufficiently dilute in the water, the carbon dioxide molecules may remain dissolved in the water almost indefinitely. But when the water has impurities in it, the carbon dioxide molecules tend to come out of solution as gas bubbles at those impurities. The impurities allow the molecules to form tiny gas bubbles—a process called nucleation. In the present case, the raisins serve as the impurities that nucleate gas bubbles. As the gas bubbles grow on the surfaces of the raisins, the raisins experience upward buoyant forces from the surrounding water. The bubbles float upward, carrying the raisins with them and causing the raisins “to dance.”