Make it easier to identify emitted photons.

pixelzoom commented 3 weeks ago

Running with ?debugEmissions puts a red circle around photons that are emitted by the atom. This was intended to aid with debugging, to make the emitted photons easier to see. For example:

I'm finding the ?debugEmissions feature so useful that I'm wondering if it might be good to do something like this for the production version. Making it easier to identify emitted photons seems like it would improve usability, as well as effectiveness of the sim. @DianaTavares @arouinfar thoughts?

Using ?debugEmissions also exposed a problem for the Bohr and de Broglie models. When a photon is emitted, it's direction is randomly chosen. If this occurs for n = 6 (whose orbit is at the outer edge of the box), the direction chosen may immediately move the photon outside the box, so fast that you don't even see it. So I think the direction needs to be a function of n.

DianaTavares commented 2 weeks ago

I love the idea of a way to identify better the emitted photon, and a red circle is brilliant! Good observation that the n=6, the emitted photon goes away of the view fast. I agree with the idea of a direction as a function of n.

@arouinfar is on vacation. If a second opinion is needed, probably @Nancy-Salpepi or @kathy-phet can give their opinion about these ideas.

Nancy-Salpepi commented 2 weeks ago

This could be helpful, but I am concerned that students will following the red circle and miss what the electron is doing. @pixelzoom, @DianaTavares and I weren't able to get the query parameter working on main. Is it currently disabled?

pixelzoom commented 2 weeks ago

Sorry, my bad... The query paramerter is actually ?debugEmission (singular).

I think the red circle is a little too heavy-handed, and I was looking for other ideas. I share @Nancy-Salpepi's concern. And I have an additional concern -- that students may think emitted photons are somehow different because they look different. But I think something a little more subtle might be useful, because sometimes it's difficult to even notice that a photon was emitted.

Nancy-Salpepi commented 2 weeks ago

I'm going to back to trying to find some real estate for the 'slow' radio button because that would definitely make it easier to see what is happening.

DianaTavares commented 2 weeks ago

I see now how the red stroke takes the attention of the electron, and yes, also leads to think that the photons emitted are different from the absorbed. I have some crazy ideas:

add the step back button, to allow students to go back and see more clear what happened. Because can pass very fast, both, the abortion and emission, and the change of n.
Sounds, one when the photon is absorbed, and the other when it is emitted. (I'm imaging similar to grab and release, something long of those lines).
Also identify that a photon was observed, can also be lost. What about a little shinning for the electron (that just have like a second duration, probably just when the electron absolve/emitted the photon, and move to the new level) as in molecules and light:

Well this don't solve the problem that the photon is the one that may get lost, because it just make bigger the change in the electron, and that is very evident in all cases.

The yellow shining goes around the photon and electron when it is emitted/absorbed and slow the reproduction a little? in that moment for example:

Because it is not important to follow the direction of the Photon, just to know what was absorbed and what was emitted.

Just ideas, thinking more about this.

DianaTavares commented 2 weeks ago

During a discussion with AR and NS we discussed that probably the only that we need is the slow button to better observe the emission by the electron. For that the panel need the toggle button need to be smaller to fit the slow option in the play panel

phetsims / models-of-the-hydrogen-atom

Make it easier to identify emitted photons. #57