Is our skin colour evidence of Einstein's solution to the photoelectric effect and the (high energy of the) UV photon?
Today in class, I touched on something profound: is our skin colour evidence of Einstein's Nobel Prize work, the photoelectric effect and the (energy of the) photon? Einstein established that 'light photons' increase in energy, in punch, as the frequency increases, particularly after the ultraviolet in the electromagnetic spectrum. (pardon the pun 'particularly' - he is one of the fathers of quantum mechanics and particle photons). At UV frequencies, the energy of visible, IR (heat), microwave, and radio light decreases and becomes very weak. Our skin colour, from this work by Dr Nina Jablonski ( Nina Jablonski breaks the illusion of skin c olour), is determined by our ancestral exposure, or not, to UV - it's UV that kills us. We adapted/evolved skin colour to protect ourselves from the UV. Light energy beyond the visible spectrum, in the UV, is dangerous to us, and our understanding of this was revealed by Albert Einstein in his paper on the quantum photoele...