Arthur Compton
“At your next breath each of you will probably inhale half a dozen or so of the molecules of Caesar’s last breath.”
Arthur Compton (September 10, 1892 – March 15, 1962) was an American physicist who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1927 for his discovery of the Compton effect, which demonstrated the particle nature of electromagnetic radiation. It was a sensational discovery at the time: the wave nature of light had been well-demonstrated, but the idea that light had both wave and particle properties was not easily accepted. He is also known for his leadership of the Manhattan Project's Metallurgical Laboratory, and served as Chancellor of Washington University in St. Louis from 1945 to 1953.
Know more:
http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1927/compton-bio.html
Image:
Arthur Holly Compton on the cover of Time Magazine on January 13, 1936, holding his cosmic ray detector
#physics #ArthurCompton #comptoneffect
the photon... such a strange particle!
ReplyDeleteAs an aside, it's a relatively simple matter to convince yourself that the quoted assertion is roughly accurate.
ReplyDeleteDavid Bessire can you explain how? Sounds interesting!
ReplyDeleteIt's a bit crude, but illustrative.
ReplyDeletea. Estimate the volume of gas exhaled in an average breath.
b. Assume a reasonable temperature and pressure for this volume of gas and use the ideal gas law to compute the number of molecules it contains.
c. Assume, given time, that these molecules will become evenly distributed throughout Earth's atmosphere. Estimate the volume of Earth's atmosphere and compute the number density per unit volume of our molecules of interest in Earth's atmosphere.
d. Multiply the number density per unit volume from (c) by the breath volume from (a) and that's how many of our molecules of interest you inhale per breath.
This of course doesn't take into account any processes that remove said molecules from the atmosphere, but when i did this calculation, i got about 2 molecules per breath.
Said another way, the number of molecules exhaled per breath is about the same as the volume of Earth's atmosphere measured in units of breath volume. :-)
David Bessire very cool - thank you!
ReplyDeleteCharles Payet My pleasure.
ReplyDelete