Photons at the blue end of the electromagnetic spectrum can exchange energy with electrons in a metal, allowing the electrons to escape their parent atoms. Photons at the red end of the spectrum don’t do that. Both are forms of light. Why are they different?
This isn’t a physics lesson, but there lies in this difference an analog worth noting. Too often we expect the same results when we apparently do the same thing, not realizing there are subtle differences in who we are as opposed to who we were and how we act as opposed to how we acted. Similarly, we often think that by being more intense, we will definitely elicit the response we are looking for. Experience with uncooperative children and adults should teach us that increasing our own intensity doesn’t get the response we desire.
The difference between the blue end of the spectrum and the red end is apparently miniscule, yet that difference is enough to cause a different response in the electrons that the photons strike. That difference is a matter of frequency. Blue is a higher frequency than red, meaning that it has, if it were considered as a wave, shorter wavelengths. Shorter wavelengths do the trick and disturb electrons. You could, if you wanted to try, shine a very intense red light on electrons without getting a response. So, to get electrons to respond, we have to have the right kind of frequency. Again, no intensity of red light does the trick.
Some metals won’t give up their electrons very easily, and that is why solar panels, which convert photons into electricity, are composed of certain metals—those that easily give up electrons. Photons are “packets” of energy, and the blue packets can empty their contents onto an electron while the less energetic red packets can’t. Every time you expend energy to elicit a response from another, you face two potential nullifying circumstances. One is the energy that you expend at a given frequency. The other is the resistance to receiving energy that keeps another from responding. You don’t have control over the latter. It’s the former that you can control.
Whenever you try to address a problem in a relationship, thinking you are going to “enlighten someone” or get someone to “respond as you wish,” be careful to choose the right kind of light. Hot red doesn’t work. Cool blue does.
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