• Question: why is it called spectroscopy?

    Asked by megan to Francesca, Laura, Matthew, Andrew, Rebecca on 12 Nov 2014.
    • Photo: Laura Schofield

      Laura Schofield answered on 12 Nov 2014:

      Spectroscopy comes from two words that have been put together. A “spectrum” describes light with different wavelengths – so a rainbow is a spectrum of coloured light. To “scope” means to investigate – you can scope a room to find the nearest exit! So when you put them together, it means to investigate a material using different wavelengths of light or different energy beams.

    • Photo: Matthew Camilleri

      Matthew Camilleri answered on 12 Nov 2014:

      Seeing that Laura has done such a good job in answering the question there is no need to give the same reply.

      It must be noted that scientists tend not to be too creative in naming techniques, so we use words that actually describe the technique itself, which also makes it easier to remember 🙂

    • Photo: Francesca Palombo

      Francesca Palombo answered on 13 Nov 2014:

      Some might say that we should use “spectrography”, others “spectrometry”. The important is the meaning: measure the interaction of light with the matter. The rest is conventional, accepted wording for a class of methodologies that do that.

    • Photo: Andrew McKinley

      Andrew McKinley answered on 14 Nov 2014:

      I think this has already been answered, but essentially the spectroscope was a device that was used to look at (to “scope”) the visible spectrum of light given off by different materials.

      The original spectroscope was essentially a tube, much like a small telescope (tele – at a distance, scope – to look!) but instead of lenses to focus light, it had a series of prisms inside to split the light into a range of colours. Spectroscopy then is simply the practice of using a spectroscope.

      Now of course we use a “spectrometer” which shines optical radiation of a particular wavelength at a sample and we see which wavelengths of light are absorbed. We are ‘looking’ with a spectrum, which is where the word comes from.

      You can make a spectroscope yourself out of a sweet tube and an old CD – there are descriptions of how to do this online – though it does involve breaking the CD (be very very careful and wear eye protection!), so you’d better make sure it’s a blank CD meant for storing data from a computer! You can adapt this by putting the fragment of CD over the lens of the camera on your phone too!

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