the oxford english dictionary says....
"The coloured luminosity produced in some transparent bodies by the direct action of light, esp. of the violet and ultra-violet rays; the property, in certain substances, of rendering the ultra-violet rays visible, so as to produce this phenomenon. Also attrib., as fluorescence spectrum, the spectrum of the light emitted by a substance when excited to fluorescence."
(what?)
more simply, fluorescence is the name for the kind of light certain objects give off when a different kind of light shines on them.
more technically,
"Fluorescence is when a molecule
absorbs light of one energy and later emits
light of a lower energy. Briefly, what happens is that upon absorption of
the first photon, an electron is promoted to a higher-energy orbital. This
raises the energy of the molecule by an amount equal to the energy of the
photon absorbed...."more
so it's about light, and color, and it's beautiful....
yeah.
this webpage created april 2004 by Laura Smoot for "The Stuff of Art"
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