Abstract
We have five senses: touching, seeing, hearing, smelling, and tasting. All these senses are chemical in their operations. Chemicals will bind some receptors on the surface of tongue to cause “bitter” or “sweet” sensation. Smelling is caused by similar mechanisms. Hearing is more mechanical in its cause, but relayed to the brain through chemical processes in the nerve systems. Seeing is perhaps the most important sense. It is caused by light hitting the eyes. That light comes from or through a filter of substance. Light does something to the substance (a chemical) and it is changed as a result. This is a very general phenomenon and has a wide-ranging implication to the everyday life. We will see how light and chemicals interact with each other.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2011 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Ochiai, E. (2011). Chemicals and Light. In: Chemicals for Life and Living. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-20273-5_20
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-20273-5_20
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-20272-8
Online ISBN: 978-3-642-20273-5
eBook Packages: Chemistry and Materials ScienceChemistry and Material Science (R0)