Recent comments in /f/askscience

IonizedRadiation32 t1_j8hkskc wrote

Reply to comment by Derice in Light traveling through a medium that slows it. Does the same photon emerge? by TheGandPTurtle

1, thank you for the detailed reply! I can't wait to understand this better.

2, at least for me, the water cup analogy doesn't quiiite work, because the reason they become indistinguishable when you mix them is because they are made of a bunch of the same stuff and it gets mixed, but subatomic particles are made from distinct units, so in theory even if you "mix" them you should be able to follow where each part goes, at least in theory, no?

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jimnrd t1_j8hjsue wrote

Reply to Light traveling through a medium that slows it. Does the same photon emerge? by TheGandPTurtle

In a medium that slows down the speed of light, such as diamond, glass, or water, the same photon that enters at point A does not exit at point B. The absorption and re-emission process in the medium causes the photon's direction to change, and the photon's original energy and phase can be affected.

In terms of wavelength, photons of the same wavelength are identical in terms of their properties such as energy, momentum, and frequency. However, when a photon is absorbed and re-emitted in a medium, the phase and direction can be randomized, resulting in a loss of coherence between the original photon and the re-emitted photon.

This effect is known as scattering.

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Feline_Diabetes t1_j8he7w7 wrote

Reply to comment by kittylikker_ in Why do dopamine reuptake inhibitors not treat Parkinson's disease? by unripenedboyparts

Tryptophan usually is the precursor to serotonin so wouldn't generally affect dopamine production.

Tyrosine is the main AA for dopamine, but its conversion to L-DOPA is the rate-limiting step, so supplementing it doesn't really help. You need to give L-DOPA to bypass that reaction if you want to bump dopamine levels.

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