Tag: april

March 18, 2016 0

Exxon and the AGU

By News Desk

Tweet Contrary to the wisdom of many, continents do shift slowly with time, and learned societies do listen to the membership.

February 20, 2016 0

Water Vapor, Water Vapor Everywhere and It All Absorbs in Air

By News Desk

Tweet Elementary quantum mechanics quickly shows that harmonic oscillators (shown by the dotted line in the figure to the right) can only absorb or emit light associated with a transition between neighboring quantum levels such as between v = 0 and 1.  To the extent that molecular vibrational motion is harmonic, this is an absolute rule. Oh yes, there also has to be a change in the dipole moment between the two levels of the transition which explains why homonuclear diatomics (N 2  , O 2 , H 2 ) don’t absorb in the infrared