At 04:16 pm 19/08/2005 +0200, you wrote:
>Grimer wrote:
>
>> Well, "For unknown reasons, the addition of a small amount
>> of noble gas (such as helium, argon, or xenon) to the gas
>> in the bubble increases the intensity of the emitted light
>> dramatically."
>>
>> Since the reasons are unknown one might justifiably infer
>> that the researchers who discovered this effect
>> "...were amazed to find that" the intensity of the emitted
>> light increased dramatically.
>>
>> This suggests that the noble gas atoms are behaving as
>> cavity resonators for visible light in the same way as
>> Boot and Randall's cavities behave for microwaves.
>>
>> If this explanation is correct then the reason for
>> the dramatic increase in the intensity of emitted light
>> is unknown no longer. <g>
>>
>> Cheers,
>>
>> Frank Grimer
>
> Moin Frank,
>
> Well, maybe, but probably not. At least, not with this given set of
> data. The noble gases are most generally used in light generating tubes
> at low atmospheres because they ionize easily enough, and then return
> to their original molecular state unchanged. In other words, they are
> very difficult gases to contaminate with other substances. That is why
> we call them Noble Gases. If the electrons produced by the collapse of
> the bubble are sufficient to cause the gas inside the bubble to ionize,
> then what you are looking at is the light emitted from a straight
> forward plasma reaction, and nothing more. At least, this is the most
> commonly accepted explanation offered up by the current researchers, and
> I find it quite plausible.
Hi Knuke,
I've been thinking about what you say in the paragraph above. If the
vacuum were simply an Alpha-atmosphere vacuum at -15 psi then one might
logically expect the pretty colours that the noble gases give. Presumably
this is what the original researchers were thinking when they introduced
small amounts of the noble gases to the experiment.
Now I know it is difficult to argue from what is not said - and I know it
is difficult to assess the provenance of a Wikipedia article - but it
seems to me that the paragraph,
===========================================================
"For unknown reasons, the addition of a small amount of
noble gas (such as helium, argon, or xenon) to the gas
in the bubble increases the intensity of the emitted light
dramatically."
===========================================================
suggests that they didn't get the result they imagined from the experiment.
If the spectrum had been changed in the way that one might have expected
then you would think the article would have said so. The fact that this
enigmatic phenomena of sonoluminescence has been around for yonks without
any agreed explanation strongly suggests that something major is not being
taken into account. I am confident that, that something, is Beta-atmosphere
pressure - or rather the reduction in Beta-atmosphere pressure within the
bubble.
I realise that the idea of a Beta-atmosphere vacuum of many thousands of
psi below ambient pressure brings about enormous cognitive dissonance in
anyone who risks taking it seriously - but that is only to be expected.
I fear there is little I can do to ameliorate such dissonance other than
to put forward the Beta-atmosphere concept as dispassionately as possible.
There is plenty of background material for anyone who wants it, both it
the Vortex archives and in three conventional publications; four if you
include the Infinite Energy article.
Cheers,
Frank Grimer
