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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Rgclegg (talk | contribs) at 12:09, 24 December 2012 (→Cold and hot countries edits). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Black body discrepancy

It's not clear from the article why the article says that the sun emits as a black body around 5800K but the diagram says 5250 degrees C. Richard Clegg (talk) 12:09, 24 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Cold and hot countries edits

(next two items are copied from user pages)

"In cold countries most people like sunshine and prefer not to be in the shade. In hot countries the converse is true and the midday hours people preferably stay inside, because it is too hot to go out."

I dont mean to sound arrogant or anything, but I dont think adding that to the article about Solar radiation was a very relevant contribution. What you wrote was your opinion and it is fine, but an encyclopedia should have non-biased factual information. Again, I hope you dont take it offensively, but I have removed it.

Nice to see kind people on wikipedia contributing to articles, and you seem to have done alot of good work.

Jedi Dan 16:39 Apr 23, 2003 (UTC)

I had my doubts about Patrick's addition at solar radiation too, and at first the only reason I put it back in after the edit conflict was because I know he generally does good work, and wouldn't put something like that in just to be a smart aleck. Then, figuring there must be some reason for what he did, I checked the "What links here" for that page, and sunshine is, sure enough, a redirect to solar radiation, so I would think he'd put that in there for people who followed that redirect to get there. -- John Owens 16:52 Apr 23, 2003 (UTC)
Adding to that, actually, it seems to me that Patrick's contribution is possibly even more relevant. After all, most of the current content is about the solar fusion that produces the radiation, than the radiation itself. Don't get me wrong, I love knowing more details about the process, but Patrick's bit is at least as relevant to the article title (and especially the redirect) as Jedi Dan's. Now that I see that solar fusion doesn't exist yet, perhaps some of this could be moved there? Or moved into fusion, and make solar fusion a redirect to that? -- John Owens 17:13 Apr 23, 2003 (UTC)

There is already quite about about fusion at Nuclear_fusion and my article was meant to really be an overview about fusion and how it relates to solar radiation rather than anything in depth about the process. I suppose I perhaps put a bit too much irrelevant information in myself, I dont mind if someone wants to reorganise things or move it about.

Jedi Dan 23:19 Apr 23, 2003 (UTC)

Alternative images

Reorganize

Article should be moved to Solar radiation. The term "sunlight" has terrestrial connotations, like sun tanning, sunstroke, sunburn; these relate to what we do with the electromagnetic radiation (EMR) like infrared once it reaches the earth's surface.

An article that focuses primarily (or exclusively) on EMR which the sun produces, is what we need here.

This will help us distinguish between EMR, currently covered in Solar variation, and Solar wind. --Uncle Ed (talk) 17:29, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

"Sunlight" applies as much to Mars, Venus, Mercury, Titan and any other planet. I don't see why the use is Earthcentric. Serendipodous 17:38, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Let's break up Sunlight into two parts:

  1. Solar radiation - all electromagnetic radiation the sun gives off, no matter what wavelength
  2. Sunlight - just infrared, visible light, and UV - the stuff that warms you, lets you see, or tans your skin

This will be less jarring to the reader, in accordance with the principle of least astonisment.

Let's use Wikipedia:Summary style to guide us. It might be a bit trickier than the break-out of Ground Zero controversy from Park51, but that's a recent (and so far, uncontroversial) experience that could be an example.

I envision Solar radiation as more technical, and Sunlight as more reader-friendly. --Uncle Ed (talk) 21:04, 7 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: no consensus to move. Favonian (talk) 23:17, 16 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Sunlight → Solar radiation – Move Sunlight to solar radiation (which currently redirects back to Sunlight because as the dictionary says, the term sunlight refers specifically to the electromagnetic radiation (ER) which is visible to the human eye. We also speak of "invisible" sunlight such as the warming rays of infrared and the tanning rays of ultraviolet (UV). But wavelengths of solar radiation longer than infrared (or shorter than UV) aren't usually called "sunlight", even by scientists, are they? Sunlight should be about solar radiation which we can see by, which warms us, or which tans us (yes, and gives us skin cancer). Solar radiation should be the general article on all wavelengths of ER the sun emits. Very likely the best arrangement would be to have a section on "Sunlight" in the Solar radiation article. We can use WP:Summary style and link this small section to the larger Sunlight article. Uncle Ed (talk) 16:09, 9 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment – so far your case is not convincing. Can you show evidence that "sunlight" is usually treated as a subtopic of "solar radiation", as opposed to the other way around? I think the current title seems OK, but I'll look at what you can show. Dicklyon (talk) 16:26, 10 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • Light is defined as visible radiation, so I should think it's inherent in the definitions that sunlight is a subtopic of solar radiation. I tend to support Ed's proposal to refocus this article on all solar radiation. Powers T 20:02, 11 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose "solar radiation" includes non-EM radiation. A new page should be started on the topic of all forms of solar radiation, such as neutrino radiation. 70.24.247.54 (talk) 05:28, 12 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Solar radiation ≥ sunlight

Could someone please explain why "solar radiation" redirects here? Sure, sunlight is certainly solar radiation, but so are other phenomenon that I do not see covered here. I.e. "solar radiation" is a much wider term. I don't think we should move this article, but "solar radiation" should definitely not be treated as a synonym. A disambig page perhaps? Or a summary article? -- Director (talk) 13:20, 13 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

See the discussion above. There was no consensus for a move (which I think was the correct decision), but that doesn't mean we can't start a solar radiation article and kill the redirect. Which is actually my preference, and I think I'm going to be bold and do it.

A big problem here (which also speaks in favor of two articles) is that neither sunlight nor solar radiation are well-defined terms. Very often UV is counted as part of sunlight, inasmuch as "light" in science is not always visible light (there are types of INvisible light, unless you want to argue that infrared light is not really light). Radiation has the same problem. EM radiation (EMR) is well-defined, but radiation in physics includes EMR and particle radiation, all of which the Sun emits. All of this must be noted in the two articles, sunlight, and solar radiation. Generally, solar radiation is a wider topic, but there is considerably overlap and some disjunction in the sense that solar radiation is sometimes used to describe ONLY solar particle radiation (solar wind plus neutrinos), none of which is light. So the answer is not so straightforward as to make solar radiation the primary topic and have sunlight entirely a subarticle. It's only MOSTLY a subarticle. SBHarris 18:19, 13 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

So you're saying "solar radiation" refers to all forms of radiation emitted by the sun, but can sometimes refer ONLY to the sun's particle radiation? Correct? Do the sources ever use the term "solar radiation" to refer ONLY to "sunlight"? -- Director (talk) 19:19, 13 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Speaking as the person who merged the articles initially, the reason I did so was because they were exactly the same; Sunlight simply had more information. I would be in favour of a de-merge assuming a sharp distinction can be made in the two articles' respective coverage, and that article creep doesn't eventually make both articles the same again. Serendipodous 19:24, 13 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I am merely pointing out that it is highly misleading to equate solar radiation with sunlight, seeing as how "sunlight" merely covers one type of solar radiation. If the articles had both covered only sunlight, it wasn't a mistake to merge them, but it does seem to be a mistake to have solar radiation redirect here. Especially if, as Sbharris says, the term can sometimes refer specifically to forms of solar radiation that are NOT sunlight.
From a logical perspective the terms are neither "sharply distinct" nor do they overlap. One term is simply wider and includes the other, like "vehicle" and "car". -- Director (talk) 19:49, 13 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I have to partly retract what I said about solar radiation. I've seen solar radiation refer to solar ionizing radiation (just as "radiation" is loosely sometimes used to speak of only ionizing radiation). In this sense it would cover the most highly energetic solar radiations: particles (but NOT neutrinos since they don't interact enough to cause significant ionization) PLUS the most energetic of EMR-- X-rays and the ionizing part of UV, which part is in the vacuum range for obvious reasons. But "sunlight" in any case is in no way a subset of "solar radiation" if that latter term is used in the sense of "solar ionizing radiation." It's only a subset if you want to define "solar radiation" in the most general terms that you can, which is all radiation of any type that leaves the Sun.

Anyway, I vote we create solar radiation and generally move every solar energy output class into it except visible light, non-ionizing UV, and (perhaps) infrared. We can reference each of these with one sentence, and discuss them more fully here.

Note also that there are already articles on light (which on Wikipedia is used to discuss electromagnetic radiation in the visible spectrum), as well as good articles on ultraviolet and infrared. Sunlight should not repeat that stuff, and indeed the part on solar visible light in light (which also covers artificial visible illumination, starlight, and so on) should mostly be moved here, and mentioned in light only as a small section, with sunlight as its main article, per WP:SS.

This article on sunlight might have a section on raw sunlight, which is the visible/IR/UV you encounter in space, and then a longer section on sunlight as it appears on Earth, which should really have stuff about lumens, quality measurements, art, aesthetics, and stuff that is sometimes softer science than light (which of course covers visible light from sources other than the Sun as well). Don't you think? Some of that has been suggest above, and I agree. SBHarris 20:04, 13 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The way I'd do it is I'd have an overview article with "main article:" links to every form of radiation the sun emits (e.g "Main article: Solar wind" and "Sunlight"). Unless of course there is a clear consensus in the sources for "solar radiation" referring to a specific type of radiation. IMO it's safe to say "solar radiation" usually means "solar radiation" ie radiation emitted by the sun, any and all. -- Director (talk) 22:47, 13 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I think I agree. Do you want to bite the bullet and create the solar radiation article and stick an {{under contruction}} tag on it while we move stuff to it and write for it and make main article links in it? SBHarris 02:06, 26 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
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