Quinine and ultraviolet light.
Aug 27th, 2007 by dmess0r
Many substances fluoresce under ultraviolet light, body fluids, antifreeze, jellyfish and even chlorophyll. Most people don’t carry around UV emitters or see the world in UV, so naturally most people wouldn’t know that Quinine also fluoresces under UV exposure. Well where the hell are you going to get Quinine? Actually it is pretty easy to come by because it is an ingredient in tonic water.
Check this out:
So what exactly is happening here which causes the glowing?
Phosphors are substances that fluoresce when they are exposed to certain wavelengths of light, in our particular case, Ultraviolet light. When a photon hits a phosphor atom, one of the phosphor’s electrons jumps to a higher energy level subsequently causing the atom to vibrate and also create heat. When the electron falls back to its normal level, it releases energy in the form of another photon. This newly created photon has less energy than its original photon, due to the fact that some energy was lost as heat.
One interesting idea I had to get really creative with this phenomenon was to fill a water bed mattress with regular tap water, and dissolve Quinine into it. Ensuring of course that the plastic containing the water was as close to transluscent as I could possibly get. Then placing underneath the bed would be two or three six-foot long fluorescent blacklights. A blast from the 80’s, but something that would look really sweet.
What is really convenient is that Quinine and tonic water are relatively inexpensive to obtain, as are blacklights. Have fun.