Talk:Scattering

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An explanation for the inexperienced as to what direct and reverse paths are would help - Anon

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[edit] Missing scattering articles

Another encyclopedia has articles on these forms of scattering, perhaps Wikipedia should have some of them. Some may be too obscure or just alternative names. Some could probably be worked into existing articles, as well. Don't forget to create a redirect, if you do that.

--Kjkolb 06:56, 25 November 2005 (UTC)


Holy sh*t this article is a mess ... is there a macro to mark it thus? gbrandt 19:57, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

It does exhibit a very parochial (and perhaps almost scattered) outlook. I see this a lot in Wikipedia articles, a couple people talk about their niches but nobody ties it together generally. I'm working on a more general overview that explains what scattering is before we go into what scattering is in 2 or 3 specific systems. I think we need that more than we need an article on gravitational scattering, though there's nothing wrong with that if somebody's dying to write one. :). Tarchon 00:40, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Table comparison of scattering phenomena

A table in this article to compare/contrast different scattering processes and the names assigned to them would be a huge improvement. Flying Jazz 13:14, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] elasticity of Brillouin scattering

I put Brillouin under elastic because the energy change (from one viewpoint) is a Doppler shift due to the velocity of a propagating acoustic wave - as I noted, the distinction between elastic and inelastic is somewhat arbitrary, since to be totally exact, there really is no such thing as a completely inelastic interaction. Even Rayleigh and Mie scattering typically involve some sort of measureable shift or broadening, which is commonly used in LIDAR and radar. Whether you label something elastic or inelastic just depends on how closely you're looking at it. It is true that "generally the whole point of measuring a Brillouin spectrum in physics is to measure the energy change" but not all Brillouin scattering is about phonon spectroscopy. By far the most common application of Brillouin is in AOMs, in which case the energy change may or may not be considered significant. It depends on whether you're using it as an intensity modulator or frequency modulator. Someone who does Doppler weather LIDAR could just as well argue that Rayleigh scattering is inelastic because, indeed, they are measuring an energy shift, but that's not even close to being the most common context in which Rayleigh scattering is encountered. It's fine with me if it's put under "inelastic" because I can see it either way (and certainly phonon spectroscopy people sometimes use the term), but it's not as cut and dried as the anonymous commentator from "Blaze Labs" makes it out to be. Tarchon 20:49, 20 May 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Sound? Radiation?

Sound is not radiation...I corrected the sentence. (anonymous comment)


I have to disagree - sound is very much a type of radiation. In physics, a wave is a wave. If every one of the 100 different niches of physics that involve scattering gets its own little "scattering is also the deflection [insert form of radiation]", you end up with a pretty unwieldy article.
If you don't believe me that "radiation" is a general term including sound, just google "acoustic radiation."
http://www.du.edu/~jcalvert/waves/radiate.htm
http://www.sfu.ca/sonic-studio/handbook/Acoustic_Radiation.html
http://scienceworld.wolfram.com/physics/AcousticRadiation.html
Even other Wikipedia articles consider sound to be a form of radiation, e.g. Acoustic_radiation_pressure
I will "uncorrect" if unrebutted.
Tarchon 23:10, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
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