# What is the difference between infrared and incandescent light?



## winter_in_tears (Jan 12, 2009)

What is the difference between infrared and incandescent light?


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## Aztek (Jan 12, 2009)

Infrared puts out red light and heat.
Red bulbs give no heat.
Incandescent puts out all colors(white)

If you're asking the affects it has on scorpions.

Scorpions are instinctively to be afraid o white light since it basically means its daytime when predators are out. Using an incandescent would simulate this preventing your scorpion from coming out when its on.

An infrared only puts out one color(Red). Their instinct cause them to fear red since in nature red light would mean nothing really. You'll have a higher chance of seeing them out and about with infrared bulbs.

Red bulbs are the same as before except they don't give out much heat.Just for viewing.


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## winter_in_tears (Jan 13, 2009)

thanks. How about incandescent red?


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## Aztek (Jan 13, 2009)

Those are the red ones I mentioned that are for viewing, and don't really provide much heat.


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## pandinus (Jan 13, 2009)

an infra red bulb contains gases that actully emit infra red light, a red incandescent bulb is just a regular white bulb with red-tinted glass.



John


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## Aztek (Jan 13, 2009)

Infrared are usually shaped different aswell.
Incandescent reds look like your regular old lightbulbs.


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## Galapoheros (Jan 13, 2009)

The way I understand it, infrared is a radiating wavelength like light but it is not visible with the naked eye.  The heat you feel from a bulb is infrared wavelengths, the light you see is a diff wavelength of radiating energy than the infrared.  You can't see it with your eyes unless you have an IR camera, which I've looked into getting but they are expensive.  If I understand it right, every object gives off IR.  I'm speculating and haven't read this but going by the way I understand it,  I think the only thing that would not emit infrared is something that was at absolute 0.  Anybody know if that's right or not, the absolute 0 thing?  So I think an infrared bulb is called infrared not because of any light you see from it, but it's because of the radiating heat it produces.  If I'm wrong, let me know, it's something I've been thinking about too and that's how I've been seeing it.


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## atrox (Jan 13, 2009)

Just so that you all know all light produces heat.


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## T.ass-mephisto (Jan 13, 2009)

Galapoheros said:


> The way I understand it, infrared is a radiating wavelength like light but it is not visible with the naked eye.  The heat you feel from a bulb is infrared wavelengths, the light you see is a diff wavelength of radiating energy than the infrared.  You can't see it with your eyes unless you have an IR camera, which I've looked into getting but they are expensive.  If I understand it right, every object gives off IR.  I'm speculating and haven't read this but going by the way I understand it,  I think the only thing that would not emit infrared is something that was at absolute 0.  Anybody know if that's right or not, the absolute 0 thing?  So I think an infrared bulb is called infrared not because of any light you see from it, but it's because of the radiating heat it produces.  If I'm wrong, let me know, it's something I've been thinking about too and that's how I've been seeing it.


thats about as accurate as you could hope for. everything does produce SOME infrared which is how some animals hunt. i can't think of any examples right now. but i'm sure if you ask one or two of the more "senior" members could help wit that.


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## kbekker (Jan 13, 2009)

T.ass-mephisto said:


> thats about as accurate as you could hope for. everything does produce SOME infrared which is how some animals hunt. i can't think of any examples right now. but i'm sure if you ask one or two of the more "senior" members could help wit that.


Pit vipers can detect (see) infrared, and that is one method by which they hunt, some of the boidae can also do this (although not as well).


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## kbekker (Jan 13, 2009)

atrox said:


> Just so that you all know all light produces heat.


 Not Chemiluminescent things, fireflies, light sticks, etc. I believe that reaction produces light without heat.


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## atrox (Jan 13, 2009)

kbekker said:


> Pit vipers can detect (see) infrared, and that is one method by which they hunt, some of the boidae can also do this (although not as well).


I think you have it wrong here my friend.  Light = heat, but heat DOES NOT = light.  So yes many snakes with Labial pits, or heat sensing pits e.g. Crotalids can sense heat, but there is no way that these pits sense light.  Their eyes sense light, and that's it.


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## kbekker (Jan 13, 2009)

atrox said:


> I think you have it wrong here my friend.  Light = heat, but heat DOES NOT = light.  So yes many snakes with Labial pits, or heat sensing pits e.g. Crotalids can sense heat, but there is no way that these pits sense light.  Their eyes sense light, and that's it.


Infrared is electromagnetic radiation, light is electromagnetic radiation, infrared is below the color red and not visible to humans.  Infrared is detected by the labial pits of boidae and the facial pits of many vipers.  In both cases these sensory organs are wired by the trigeminal nerves to the optic lobe of the brain.  Although not perceived by the eyes, this does actually render the ability to see infrared by these taxa. Furthermore these organs are situated in a manner that provide depth perception to the "image".

 Human visible light does not always = heat, i.e. bioluminescence, and heat does not always = light visible to humans (light is all electromagnetic radiation, UV light for example is light even though human can’t see it).


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## atrox (Jan 13, 2009)

I appreciate your point here, but the labials are still perceiving the radiation as heat and not light.  These organs are not capable of perceiving light, only heat.  Since light is radiation, and therefore heat the labials are doing what they should.  Detecting heat...


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## kbekker (Jan 13, 2009)

atrox said:


> I appreciate your point here, but the labials are still perceiving the radiation as heat and not light.  These organs are not capable of perceiving light, only heat.  Since light is radiation, and therefore heat the labials are doing what they should.  Detecting heat...



The labials are most sensitive to radiant heat, this is heat in the form of electromagnectic waves. Here is a decent diagram of the electromagnetic spectrum...

Infra red is as much light as ultraviolet is light.

This may stem from a semantics issue, and a less than optimal understanding of electromagnetic radiation.  I still stand by my statement...

"Pit vipers can detect (see) infrared, and that is one method by which they hunt, some of the boidae can also do this (although not as well)."

the term "see" is because of the fact these nerves conduct to the optic lobe of the brain, and the field of perception from each pit overlaps to allow for depth of perception.


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## atrox (Jan 13, 2009)

It's been ten years since my nuclear chemistry courses (I think my understanding is reasonable), but I agree that this is a semantics issue.


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## winter_in_tears (Jan 13, 2009)

you guys are awesome. thanks for all this amazing info. I had incandescent red before, but from reading all the advice here the right thing for me is to go with infrared.

Thanks again!


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## deserthairy (Jan 13, 2009)

Just tried a 25W red party bulb the other day from Lowes for 2.38. For the money, it works for me (just for viewing).


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## skips (Jan 13, 2009)

Haha, this is such a useless appendix to the question asked, but, people are mostly right.  I'm absolutely positive about everything I say here.  Heat is defined as the TRANSFER of energy, which does not have to include EM radiation or light.  Temperature is defined as a measure of the average kinetic energy (kinetic nrg = nrg of motion) of a system.  Electromagnetic radiation, however, is simply when a photon (packet of EM radiation) is emitted from an electron going from an excited to its ground state and giving off energy in the form of a photon.  infrared is produced from the gasses in the bulb, being that the energy input into the gas emits only a spectrum of light in the infrared range.  In a standard filament bulb you run electrons through a highly resistant material and the only way to get rid of this energy is by A.) emitting photons of visible light, and B.) emitting photons in infrared, heat.  compact fluorescents work differently and so do metal halides.  regular light bulbs don't have the gas necessary to produce a great deal of infrared, only the resistant filament to produce mostly visible light.


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## skips (Jan 13, 2009)

right, if you want transferable heat, you want infrared.  if you want viewing, actually both work.


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## atrox (Jan 14, 2009)

skips said:


> Haha, this is such a useless appendix to the question asked, but, people are mostly right.  I'm absolutely positive about everything I say here.  Heat is defined as the TRANSFER of energy, which does not have to include EM radiation or light.  Temperature is defined as a measure of the average kinetic energy (kinetic nrg = nrg of motion) of a system.  Electromagnetic radiation, however, is simply when a photon (packet of EM radiation) is emitted from an electron going from an excited to its ground state and giving off energy in the form of a photon.  infrared is produced from the gasses in the bulb, being that the energy input into the gas emits only a spectrum of light in the infrared range.  In a standard filament bulb you run electrons through a highly resistant material and the only way to get rid of this energy is by A.) emitting photons of visible light, and B.) emitting photons in infrared, heat.  compact fluorescents work differently and so do metal halides.  regular light bulbs don't have the gas necessary to produce a great deal of infrared, only the resistant filament to produce mostly visible light.


Skip you made this a little clearer, thanks.

I do stand behind what I said as well, I wasn't wrong in any way, not that it helped this discussion.

My scorps definately run and hide when I flip the white light on.  The infrared bulb is always on for heat though.  They don't seem to mind that one, although I'm not sure if they can see it or not.


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## skips (Jan 14, 2009)

atrox said:


> Skip you made this a little clearer, thanks.
> 
> I do stand behind what I said as well, I wasn't wrong in any way, not that it helped this discussion.
> 
> My scorps definately run and hide when I flip the white light on.  The infrared bulb is always on for heat though.  They don't seem to mind that one, although I'm not sure if they can see it or not.


I agree with everything you and Kbekker said.  I just really enjoy chemistry and thought i'd put in my two cents.  there are now a couple threads on the dynamics of lighting going on right now.  i wonder if they could be condensed.  I really  think that Infrared lighting is almost completely ignored or undetected by scorpions.


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## atrox (Jan 14, 2009)

I'm not sure how a test could be constructed that would make a determination as to what parts of the sprectrum they can recognize.


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## skips (Jan 14, 2009)

atrox said:


> I'm not sure how a test could be constructed that would make a determination as to what parts of the sprectrum they can recognize.


I'm just copy pasting this from my thread on lighting, "a very dumb question on lighting."  \

"Ha! yeah that was pretty funny. I think scorps and arthropods in general have a lot less cone photoreceptors than humans do. There's more evidence and research other than they can't see well, but you'd have to dig for that info a little to confirm it for yourself, I didn't look for it. According to Wikipedia, animals with a low number of photoreceptors probably do not see in the red light spectrum, so to them it is dark in red light. If they do pick it up, in my opinion, it is a low, "dusk" type of color that triggers the instinct that it's OK to come out because to them, "it's getting dark out".

From Wikipedia. You can find it under "Purkinje effect":

"Many research animals (such as rats and mice) have limited photopic vision - as they have far fewer cone photoreceptors(than humans). By using red lights, the animal subjects remain "in the dark""

I think it'd be really hard to make an experiement like that though.  Alot or most of the sensory equipment they have are the pectines and hairs on their bodies.  It's not like they would be disoriented by the absence of light.


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## atrox (Jan 15, 2009)

I would like to see a study that's been published in a peer reviewed journal.  Anyone can write for Wikipedia...


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## kbekker (Jan 15, 2009)

http://faculty-staff.ou.edu/G/Douglas.D.Gaffin-1/papers/2008_Animal_Behavior_76,365-373.pdf

This article speaks about light reception in scorpions. The work cited page has several appropriate reference to this discussion.  On a side note the authors refer to Infrared as light.


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## Galapoheros (Jan 15, 2009)

Infrared is referred to as light but it is light that is not visible with our eyes.  I know, it's not a way in which we are use to thinking.  If it's light we can't see, most people want to say that it is not light if they can't see it.  But even though we can't see it, science classifies infrared as light.  Here's an attempt by NASA to help people like me understand it better.   
http://science.hq.nasa.gov/kids/imagers/ems/infrared.html


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## pandinus (Jan 15, 2009)

wow you guys ended up getting pretty deep on this one. lol


John


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## atrox (Jan 16, 2009)

pandinus said:


> wow you guys ended up getting pretty deep on this one. lol
> 
> 
> John



I like profound discussions, don't you get sick of the inane ones?


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