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Why metals..?


albertlee

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1) sonorous - not all metals are sonorus some just thud when hit, particularly soft metals. its all to do with acoustics and how they reflect sound methinks

 

2)shiny - again not all metals are "shiny" but it is bcause they are good at reflecting the light of the visible spectrum.

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Most metals are shiny, because of the fact that there are free electrons in a conducting band. Metals have a special form of bonding, with atoms in a lattice and electrons freely flowing through the lattice. These electrons, which are in a conduction band, cannot be said to belong to a particular atom or molecule. This 'free cloud' of electrons is very reflective for light of most wave lengths. Why this is reflective can only be well understood by means of quantum mechanics.

This same 'free cloud' of electrons also explains why metals are conductive. If a potential is applied over a piece of metal, then the electrons are attracted to the anode and they can move freely to that and at the same time, electrons are sourced by the cathode.

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so' date=' how, at atomic level, do metals transport sound waves??

 

secondly, how do electrons pass heat?

 

 

besides, is there energy holding protons and neutrons together?[/quote']

 

air, water, and solids all transport sound through vibration. so I'd assume the atoms vibrate...

 

also the Strong Nuclear Force keeps protons and neutrons together.

 

about the heat, heat's just infrared EM radiation, and heat is passed by energy transfering from atom to atom (through the infrared)

 

Not sure if this is all very exact, but close enough I hope lol

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air, water, and solids all transport sound through vibration. so I'd assume the atoms vibrate...
Close enough.

 

also the Strong Nuclear Force keeps protons and neutrons together.
Close enough.

 

about the heat, heat's just infrared EM radiation, and heat is passed by energy transfering from atom to atom (through the infrared)
Far away.

 

Not sure if this is all very exact, but close enough I hope lol

I'll get to this when i find more time.

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Sound is a Longitudinal wave, the atoms move slightly for each "peak" in the wave, this results in nearby atoms moving and so on, so the wave propogates along the metal.

 

Not to great at putting this into words but here goes:

 

There are 3 types of heat transpher, radiation (to do with photons being emited, so if an electron changes down energy level then the resulting photon could be described as heat transpher), conduction, where the average kintetic energy changes as you move from one system to another and the KE gradguly evens out to be statistically even accross the whole system. And convection where parts of a system with a larger average KE move to an area with lower KE... or something like that I have issues with words and heat/internal energy/temperature.

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Sound is a Longitudinal wave, the atoms move slightly for each "peak" in the wave, this results in nearby atoms moving and so on, so the wave propogates along the metal.
Sound is purely longitudinal, only in a medium that can not support shear (ie: a fluid, like air or water). In a solid you have both longitudinal and transverse modes of propagation.

 

Metals are sonorous because (i) they are crystalline, and have little or no means to disprerse the sound energy (ie: they have very small damping coefficients), and (ii) their elastic modulii have values that are right to make everday sized metal objects possess a natural frequency that is in the audible range.

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Atoms pass energy as photonic energy, for atoms to pass heat they have to pass Photonic energy as infrared (EM Radiation). To do so they have to pass a certain intensity of photonic energy, that's 10^-19 J to be exact! Photonic energy is electromagnetic waves that are "made" by the nucleus of atoms.

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Atoms pass energy as photonic energy, for atoms to pass heat they have to pass Photonic energy as infrared (EM Radiation). To do so they have to pass a certain intensity of photonic energy, that's 10^-19 J to be exact! Photonic energy is electromagnetic waves that are "made" by the nucleus of atoms.
Sorry to be blunt, but this is entirely gibberish.
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