Description

Small molecules are crucial to identify and characterize. Scientists overcome this difficult challenge by observing the different interactions between light and matter. This is a picture of different colors of flames. There are metallic salts suspended in the liquid. When we fire it, the salts absorb this energy and when they release it, they emit different beautiful visible lights.

Through this experiment, we can see how different compounds emit different colors of light.There are metallic salts suspended in the liquid. When we fire it, the salts absorb this energy and when they release it, they emit different beautiful visible lights. The solvent evaporates, and the suspended particles stay in the flame with high energy. The observed light comes from those atoms losing their excitation through radiating light in the visible region. The fact that every different element has different color means that every element has different levels of energy or quantum states. The energy between quantum states is discrete and different for each element. In this case, that energy is released as light that corresponds to the visible region of the electromagnetic spectrum. Quantum mechanics is gorgeous!