Answer to Question #164214 in General Chemistry for Sam

Question

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Jonathan’s claim: light is always the same, even when it is emitted by a different light sources(light the sun and a light bulb) 

Question 1: do you agree or disagree with his claim? 

Question 2: what evidence from your observations within our lesson prove your point?

Answer 1

The sun has a photosphere with an effective temperature of around 5800K while the everyday light bulb has an effective temperature of about half that at 2900K. The result is that the light bulb has more infrared output than visible and less ultraviolet. The sun has far more visible than infrared or ultraviolet. The sun is so very bright that even the relatively weak infrared and ultraviolet are significant. Both the sun and the bulb pretty much emit photons all over the UV/Visible/InfraRed spectrum. But, do so at different intensities. That means there are a different number of photons impinging into your eye. So the total light, or the spectrum of photons, is not the same. Other than colour temperature and intensity, there is nothing different between light from a bulb and light from the sun. Photons emitted by both sources are approximate of the same wavelength and practically indistinguishable.