Solved cryptogram
Dim blue light can knock electrons out of a metal when bright red light never will.
Physics Facts, sourced to HyperPhysics, Georgia State University.
Solve it yourself
This fact is a cryptogram here: 67 letters over 20 different ones, graded medium.
Or go to the puzzle’s own page first.
What it means
If light were only a wave, turning up the brightness would eventually supply enough energy and color would not matter. It does not work that way. Each electron is freed by a single packet of light or by none, and the energy in a packet is set by the color rather than by the brightness. Below a threshold color, no amount of light does anything. Einstein explained this in 1905, and it is the work his Nobel Prize actually cites.
The claim comes from HyperPhysics, Georgia State University.
- SourceHyperPhysics, Georgia State University
- CollectionPhysics Facts
- Difficultymedium
- Length67 letters, 20 of them different
Nearby in the collection
The facts either side of this one.
- HyperPhysics, Georgia State Universitymedium, 77 letters
- HyperPhysics, Georgia State Universitymedium, 70 letters
- HyperPhysics, Georgia State Universitymedium, 69 letters
- HyperPhysics, Georgia State Universityhard, 76 letters
About as hard as this one
Scored closest to it by the model behind our guide to solving cryptograms.
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- HyperPhysics, Georgia State Universitymedium, 72 letters
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