Photoemission

Trying to find something to start with...hmmm, looking at this chocolate bar, reminds me the talk I had with a friend a while ago about kicking a chocolate bar with x-ray in UHV (Ultra High Vacuum)--if it can achieve the ultimate flavor of happiness?


Let's start from the very beginning of this concept, in quantum physics, what is called Photoemission.  Basically, it is all about using light to kick electrons out of a chunk of, let's say, chocolate, as we discussed.  It is hard to visualize using light to kick something, but if you know "photon", or Sir Isaac's "light ball", that's great.  History of science has shown that people seem to be quite serious about this game, because they believe by using a photon to kick those stupid electrons in the chocolate in a pretty gentle manner, then electrons can be pulled out happily and bring with them stories from inside the chocolate bar, which can then be used to make money, e.g., improve the flavor or texture, make it more silky, etc.  They are lucky in a certain way, because electrons are usually quite tolerant.  So even if you kick them really hard, I mean, gently hard, using an X-ray photon (which is quite heavy), they seem to be pretty enjoying being kicked, so they popped up with a whole lot of stories.  But once they are out of the chocolate, obviously they are less happy, and they might fall asleep and drift around, forget the story they once remembered.  To keep them awake, without chocolate and coffee, cheap vacuum won't work.  So, there comes a place to waste some dollars: UHV ...


Sounds like an interesting game? But later on we realized, that is actually a very very bad idea. Why? Chocolate is not vacuum compatible, meaning when you are pumping stuff out of your 100,000.00$ UHV box, the chocolate will degas like crazy--Degas means throw up all kinds of weird things into the vacuum so vacuum is no longer vacuum any more...


So...it's just a fun idea, don't even think about trying it in your UHV box :)