At lower frequencies, there's no reason to think that an infinite number of frequencies may be attainable. After all, if you move a coil winding a smidgen of an atom one way or the other it will affect the resonant frequency. Same with a cavity.
But, when you get above the frequencies that can be achieved by such "mechanical" means, are there frequencies that simply cannot be achieved at all? Is there a mechanism, within our physical universe, that can prevent them?
Let's zero in on the visible spectrum where we can think of colors as colors. If colors are generated by the interchange of energy between electrons and photons as the electrons jump from orbit to orbit, in a quantum world are there energy gaps that simply cannot exist and thus are incapable of producing some frequenies of light (or perhaps most frequenies of light)?
If there are only about 100 elements and a finite number of orbital energies, it would seem so. However, not all light (even light that seems like maybe it should be) is monochromatic. A red LED does produce red light but, only when the light is trapped in a mode that favors the "real" frequency, as in an LED laser, does it come out monochromatic.
So, I guess the question may be whether there's enough of that "tolerance" across the elements and all their possible orbits to produce a truly continuous spectrum or are there still gaps for which a color cannot be generated; an "illegal" color?
I wonder if anyone has writeen a program that takes into accouint all the possible energy levels for all the orbits of the electrons of all the elements and includes the tolerance allowed for each and plots a spectrum that would show if there are indeed those "illegal" colors.
Does anyone here have a sense of this? I had touched on this earlier but, decided to "formalize" it with a thread.
But, when you get above the frequencies that can be achieved by such "mechanical" means, are there frequencies that simply cannot be achieved at all? Is there a mechanism, within our physical universe, that can prevent them?
Let's zero in on the visible spectrum where we can think of colors as colors. If colors are generated by the interchange of energy between electrons and photons as the electrons jump from orbit to orbit, in a quantum world are there energy gaps that simply cannot exist and thus are incapable of producing some frequenies of light (or perhaps most frequenies of light)?
If there are only about 100 elements and a finite number of orbital energies, it would seem so. However, not all light (even light that seems like maybe it should be) is monochromatic. A red LED does produce red light but, only when the light is trapped in a mode that favors the "real" frequency, as in an LED laser, does it come out monochromatic.
So, I guess the question may be whether there's enough of that "tolerance" across the elements and all their possible orbits to produce a truly continuous spectrum or are there still gaps for which a color cannot be generated; an "illegal" color?
I wonder if anyone has writeen a program that takes into accouint all the possible energy levels for all the orbits of the electrons of all the elements and includes the tolerance allowed for each and plots a spectrum that would show if there are indeed those "illegal" colors.
Does anyone here have a sense of this? I had touched on this earlier but, decided to "formalize" it with a thread.