No, this was not a spring break destination for me, although we did see one. I, as did many of my fellow band-mates, went to Japan over spring break on a great tour with a probably once-in-a-lifetime chance to see the cherry blossoms in full bloom in Tokyo. On our last day, the organization that did our tour treated us to a trip to Uyeno Park to see the many cherry trees there. Although my parents, friends, and I probably collected many hundreds of photos of the trees and blossoms, the one that caught my eye on this Sunday night was a picture my dad took of a sign in the subway station: "Hard Rock Cafe - Uyeno Park." This picture caught my eye for two reasons: one, the small Hard Rock Cafe in a Tokyo subway station was a funny sight, and two, the sign used neon lights to catch people's attentions. And it was these neon lights that caught my attention because of.....Physics! As we learned in Physics, these types of lights are made up of glass tubes filled with different types of gases per tube. When current is run through these tubes, some of the energy in the current goes to exciting the electrons in whatever gas is in the tube. These high-energy electrons then will fall back to their original energy states, releasing a photon of a certain wavelegnth depending on the stregnth of the current and the type of gas in the tube. Were the gas Hydrogen, the electron would be excited to an energy level, then fall back to n=2, corresponding to the Balmer Series and emitting visible light. Each element has different energy levels, therefore releasing different wavelegnths/colors of light corresponding to their emission spectrum. Therefore, there are four different types of gases used in these tubes, one for each different color. Oh no! This means Physics followed me, even on my spring break trip! AAAHHHH!
p.s. just kidding about the screaming :-)
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