File talk:Tonic water uv.jpg

UV Light Through Glass?[edit]

To my knowledge, bottles of that size from Canada Dry are glass. As far as I know, UV light can't go through glass. How does the quinine fluoresce if UV light can't get to it? I'm not calling the image a hoax. I'm just looking for answers. L3lackEyedAngels (talk) 18:39, 6 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It definitely is glass, and the transparency depends on the wavelength. See UV-A#Natural_sources_of_UV. Even air is opaque to 200 nm, but ordinary glass is 90% transparent to 350 nm. The black light I am using is a standard 15mw CFL "Black light", in fact, it is this one, which having been made for special effects, is peaked probably at 370 nm. I've tried two shortwave UV lamps (for geological use) and observed no fluorescence through the glass (though the glass itself did fluoresce a bit). --Splarka (rant) 23:58, 6 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This is an excellent illustration: intent, color, composition, juxposition, with perhaps a dash of Andy Warhol. It should get a prize.--John Bessa (talk) 11:50, 24 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]