What seems perhaps the most unexpected thing, is that the temperature,
as indicated by a sensitive thermometer, continues to rise if the
thermometer is moved just beyond the red light of the spectrum. There
actually seems to be more heat beyond the red than in the red, but if
the thermometer is moved too far away, the temperature again falls.
Later we shall see what this means.
138. The Energy of the Sun. It is difficult to tell how much of the
energy of the sun is light and how much is heat, but it is easy to
determine the combined effect of heat and light.
[Illustration: FIG. 89.--The energy of the sun can be measured in heat
units.]
Suppose we allow the sun's rays to fall perpendicularly upon a metal
cylinder coated with lampblack and filled with a known quantity of
water (Fig. 89); at the expiration of a few hours the temperature of
the water will be considerably higher. Lampblack is a good absorber of
heat, and it is used as a coating in order that all the light rays
which fall upon the cylinder may be absorbed and none lost by
reflection.
Light and heat rays fall upon the lampblack, pass through the
cylinder, and heat the water. We know that the red light rays have the
largest share toward heating the water, because if the cylinder is
surrounded by blue glass which absorbs the red rays and prevents their
passage into the water, the temperature of the water begins to fall.
That the other light rays have a small share would have been clear
from the preceding Section.
All the energy of the sunshine which falls upon the cylinder, both as
heat and as light, is absorbed in the form of heat, and the total
amount of this energy can be calculated from the increase in the
temperature of the water. The energy which heated the water would have
passed onward to the surface of the earth if its path had not been
obstructed by the cylinder of water; and we can be sure that the
energy which entered the water and changed its temperature would
ordinarily have heated an equal area of the earth's surface; and from
this, we can calculate the energy falling upon the entire surface of
the earth during any one day.
Computations based upon this experiment show that the earth receives
daily from the sun the equivalent of 341,000,000,000 horse power--an
amount inconceivable to the human mind.
Professor Young gives a striking picture of what this energy of the
sun could do. A solid column of ice 93,000,000 miles long and 2-1/4
miles in diameter could be melted in a single second if the sun could
concentrate its entire power on the ice.
While the amount of energy received daily from the sun by the earth is
actually enormous, it is small in comparison with the whole amount
given out by the sun to the numerous heavenly bodies which make up the
universe. In fact, of the entire outflow of heat and light, the earth
receives only one part in two thousand million, and this is a very
small portion indeed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account