Photographic Film and Ghosts
What are ghosts made of? Can analogue photographic colour film provide a clue? A hypothetical exploration of ghost matter.
What are ghosts made of?
I know! What has this question got to do with my months of posts on Revelation and The Q’Zam’Ta Trilogy, exploring what would life be like after the Resurrection, through the eyes of my protagonist Charlotte Elisabeth? A lot! First off, I’ve completed reading and thinking about Revelation for my trilogy. And second, novel two, The Soul’s Reckoning takes place partly on Earth. How would my protagonist manifest in a material world? Hmmm.
I tried to work out what spirits are made of for The Soul’s Awakening, but now I need to get into the nitty gritty of plausible details. What better way to start than looking at film!
A side note: I don’t care if people can capture images of ghosts on film or not. Nor do I care if people believe whether ghosts exist or not. What I’m interested in is answering the how question.
If film can capture images of ghosts, what does that say about what ghosts are made of?
It’s kind of liking posing a hypothetical, then using a combination of scientific facts (about film and light) along with a thought experiment to theorize the composition of a ghost.
Silver-Halide Crystals in Film
Silver-halide compounds grown as crystals, layered onto plastic to create photographic film, detect photons, that is, light. (Remember how light is both a particle and a wave? This particle-wave is called a photon.) Silver halides combine silver (Ag) with chlorine, bromine, or iodine.
The energy in photons is electromagnetic energy; this energy can cause changes to matter.
When photons bombard the crystals, they release silver ions from their halide compounds.
The sensitized layers of silver halides transfer the photons’ energy to the silver halides to liberate silver ions from their molecular make up.
The developing agent during film processing converts the silver ions into silver metal. Those halide crystals that were exposed to photons (radiation) develop more rapidly than the unexposed crystals. But leave the film long enough in the developer, and all the silver ions will be converted, leading to no discernible image. That’s why the next stage in development is to stop the developer before all the silver ions are converted into silver metal.
Detecting Beyond the Blue Visible Spectrum
Unmodified silver-halide crystals are only sensitive to the blue portion of the spectrum and not to the longer wavelengths below the blue. Some of these halides, like silver bromide and silver chloride, detect the invisible-to-the-naked-eye X-ray and gamma ray portions of the electromagnetic spectrum above the blue.
From Iowa State University:
“When x-rays , gamma rays or light rays strike the the crystals or grains , some of the Br- ions are liberated and captured by the Ag+ ions. In this condition, the radiograph is said to contain a latent (hidden) image because the change in the grains is virtually undetectable, but the exposed grains are now more sensitive to reaction with the developer.”
For colour film, manufacturers attach organic molecules to the crystals’ surfaces to sensitize them to the longer wavelengths emitted by blue, green, and red photons. The top layer detects blue, the middle layer green, and the bottom red photons. Infrared film uses specialized dyes or a filter that blocks all or most of the visible light spectrum.
“Curiously, infrared photographs of sunglasses and other optical surfaces coated with ultraviolet and visible light-blocking agents appear transparent, and reveal the eyes behind seemingly opaque lenses. Infrared photographic film will not record thermal radiation (heat) distribution because it is not sufficiently sensitive to long-wavelength radiation (far-infrared).” From Evident Scientific formerly Olympus Corporation’s Scientific Solutions Division.
Now comes the interesting bit.
Detecting Wavelengths
Photons in each portion of the spectrum have certain wavelengths. At one end are radio waves with a wavelength of 10³ m; at the other end gamma rays have an extremely short wavelength of 0.1 nm or less than 10 pm. The shorter the wavelength, the more energy is stored in the photon.
Human eyes can detect only a small portion of these wavelengths. We know these as the visible spectrum — which is sort of in the middle of the entire known light or electromagnetic radiation spectrum.
But our vision is less acute than silver-halide crystals.
Improving Silver-Halide Crystal Photon Detection
When a film manufacturer is growing the silver-halide crystals, they can add chemicals into them that affect their light sensitivity. Photographers will know this as ISO or ASA rating. The larger they grow the crystals, the faster they can detect light. That’s why high-speed film is grainy. The smaller the crystals, the slower they detect photons, leading to the best-looking photos.
Now, you’d want a high-speed film to detect high-energy photons. Otherwise the energy would quickly overexpose regular or slow-speed film. Small silver-halide crystals will not capture the higher energy photons properly.
The higher the photon’s energy, the larger the silver-halide grain or crystal must be.
So, for example, high-resolution film will have crystals of 0.048 um in diameter while X-ray film will use crystals that are 1.71 um in diameter.
According to NASA, humans cannot see ultraviolet photons. X-rays and gamma rays are higher in frequency (shorter wavelengths) than ultraviolet.
“A standard measure of all electromagnetic radiation is the magnitude of the wavelength (in a vacuum), which is usually stated in units of nanometers (one-thousandth of a micrometer) for the visible light portion of the spectrum. The wavelength is defined as the distance between two successive peaks (or valleys) of the waveform (see Figure 2). The corresponding frequency of the radiated wave, which is the number of sinusoidal cycles (oscillations or complete wavelengths) that pass a given point per second, is proportional to the reciprocal of the wavelength. Thus, longer wavelengths correspond to lower frequency radiation and shorter wavelengths correspond to higher frequency radiation. Frequency is usually expressed in quantities of hertz ( Hz ) or cycles per second ( cps ).” From Evident Scientific
Note: Brainwaves are described in terms of their frequencies. For example, neurons in the brain propagate delta waves of 1 to 3 Hz, while thinking waves when awake and alert propagate at 16 to 20 Hz. Our eyes can perceive the visible spectrum, whose photons have frequencies from 400 to 790 THz (teraHertz). Our retinas translate red, green, and blue visible spectrum frequencies to (unknown?) frequencies that propagate along the optic nerves to the visual cortex of the brain. It’s helpful to use frequency instead of wavelength when pondering the hypothetical. This leads to another question I’m going to look into later.
Ghost Characteristics in Popular Culture
Having figured out what frequencies film can capture, I next consider how popular culture portrays ghosts because there are a lot of similarities within the differences.
Ghosts:
Aren’t visible or audible to human senses.
But can:
Be solid or transparent;
Move through walls;
Inhabit humans;
Move objects;
Have a special power related to their death;
Can be seen by a few (related to brain injury);
Speak to mediums through symbols, imagery, or words — symbols can be characteristic to the medium;
Communicate through insects and animals behaviour — in other words, direct them;
Be confined to a particular location;
Can roam the world.
Ghosts remain on earth because they have unfinished business. Any other characteristics I’ve not remembered or thought of?
Since ghosts are invisible and inaudible to us, then they must manifest in the invisible portion of the spectrum. Even if they appear solid, it seems that only a few can see them that way and only after (or because of) a brain change such as injury. That implies they are perceiving them outside of the five senses. How they can communicate directly to the brain outside the five senses, is another question I’ll be pondering.
Their other common characteristic is being able to pass through walls yet walk on floors.
Conclusion
If a ghost is energy that exists in the frequency range of ultraviolet or above, then although we may not be able to see them with our eyes, certain ISO films could detect them. But film cannot detect microwaves or radio waves and so ghosts could not be in that energy range.
Very high-energy photons like gamma rays can pass through concrete.
Gamma “rays possess tremendous penetrating ability and have been reported to be able to pass through three meters of concrete! Individual gamma-ray photons contain so much energy that they are easily detected, but the extremely small wavelength limits the experimental observation of any wavelike properties. Gamma rays originating from the hottest regions of the universe, including supernova explosions, neutron stars, pulsars, and black holes, travel through vast distances in space to reach the Earth.” From Evident Scientific
Gamma rays can cause mutations and cell death, but radiologists can control gamma-ray emissions to treat disease. Does that mean ghosts could be controlled gamma rays? I know, woo-woo science fiction! But there’s an awful lot we don’t know about the universe, so why not, eh?
Oh, and, by the way, I had gamma rays injected into me via a radioisotope to examine my brain after brain injury, and I’m still alive. Heh. I write about the results of my SPECT scan in Concussion Is Brain Injury: Treating the Neurons and Me.
X-rays have less penetration ability than gamma rays (think about how they can pass through muscles but are stopped by bones, which then appear on X-ray images). X-rays can also be both harmful and useful. And perhaps exist in the spectrum that more closely aligns with ghost characteristics of being invisible, able to penetrate, yet can walk on matter??
But while silver-halide crystals can detect gamma rays and X-rays in the frequency range of 10¹⁷ to 10²⁴, could neurons? A question for another day.