Metallurgy Lab: Fingerprinting the Elements (By Dr. Cambria Reinsborough, Science & Honors Inquiry Program Instructor)

Sophomores learn how to identify metals using their indicative color upon heating. They had to identify the colors with the naked eye (think "mango orange" and "flaming hot cheeto red") and then they viewed the light with the spectroscope (black object) to get the identifying spectral lines. 

When the metal atoms are placed into a flame, the electrons absorb energy and jump to an excited state. The energized electrons fall back to ground state and give off photons of electromagnetic energy, and the energy of the photon determines the color of visible light. The color serves as a "fingerprint" of the element to which the atoms belong.
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