Tag: december

February 24, 2016 0

Where environmentalists did need to change their tune

By News Desk

( Source ) Nuclear power proponents keep saying that environmentalists should sing a nuclear tune, and a few enviros agree. Personally I remain "meh", maybe even moreso (moremeh?) over the years as the price of renewables and storage keep dropping. I know that nuclear power cost breakthroughs are scheduled for South Korea and China, but we’ve all heard that one before.

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