Have you ever chewed on a wintergreen mint in front of a mirror in the dark? If you have, you may have noticed some sparks of light coming out of your mouth as you chewed on the candy; and, without knowing it, you have experienced a physical phenomenon called triboluminescence. In this problem you will analyze some of the key elements of triboluminescence in wintergreen candies.

When you break a sugar crystal with your teeth, energetic electrons, released by the broken chemical bonds, collide with nitrogen molecules in the air. As a result of these collisions, the electrons in the nitrogen molecules jump to a state of higher energy; when they decay to their ground state, radiation is emitted.

Imagine that an electron in an excited state in a nitrogen molecule decays to its ground state, emitting a photon with a frequency of 8.88×1014 Hz . What is the change in energy that the electron undergoes to decay to its ground state?

Considering that the highest intensity in the nitrogen spectrum is, in fact, recorded for radiation with a frequency of about 8.88×1014 Hz, will your eyes be able to detect this radiation?