What is accelerating potential or decelerating potential? I came across the term in the various experimental arrangements to study photoelectric effect. The book says, "... we keep the collector plate at some positive accelerating potential w.r.t. the emittor plate "

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osprey · Answer

the pe effect - Einstein's nominal Nobel prize. ACCELERATING potential. (difference) is the application of an Electric field/potential difference to accelerate a charged particle. DECELERATING decelerates a charged particle. In the PE effect, this has something to do with a photon of the correct frequency, I think it is, "ATTEMPTING" to EJECT an ELECTRON from the body/surface of a metal. The STOPPING/DECEL potential is the potential/potential difference/voltage at which the electrons DO NOT have the energy to escape from the substance by PE (emission). By measuring this, such things as the "WORK FUNCTION" can be calculated/gleaned/guessed/estimated and that in turn can be fed into the Einstein theory to see if the theory predicts the effect. That triggers a couple of Nobel prizes, and overtures things such as quantum mechanics, and wave particle duality (which Newton may have suspected ...) I think it's a standard expt in most "advanced" physics labs (for the ones still awake that is). Point about the use of "nominal" ... E, that's MILEVA too, possibly, relativity caused a stir, but "evidence" was hard to come by. With the PE, theory is "simple", AND it can be demoed. So, couple of prizes, for the theorist (AE) and the bloke that did the expt. Everyone's happy (ish - not Mileva Maric-Einstein; not at all) http://perendis.webs.com

osprey · Answer

ps ... Without seeing your source, it's difficult to avoid the usual waffle from a bird brain.

dustin_whitelock · Answer

Should I quote the line from the book?

osprey · Answer

pps ... it doesn't matter (as far as I know) how intense the light source is in the PE effect, what matters is the energy of each photon. So, a very intense wrong wavelength light source will not give PE, whereas as "weak" source of the right wavelength will give PE. And, thinking of wavelength and frequency as connected maths wise ...

osprey · Answer

The more information I get about ANY problem the "easier" it can be to solve it. Ergo, yup. Remember that most of the science you study(physics) is stuff that's been developed over a few thousand years, and since the early 1900s a lot of it is associated with probably one of the most prestigious prizes on the planet - Nobel. If you struggle .... well so did they. And I think there's a line from late President Kennedy - "because it's hard" wrt space and NASA ?