preoccupied wrote:In my mind I believe right now that energy fields are a part of molecular actions but separate from the actual molecules. I just want to believe that energy fields are a distinct separate entity and is tangible in its own form from any molecule. Do you know why vibrations make heat or cold? I think that the answer might be that uneven vibrations or uneven mechanical oscillation will reduce energy fields and even oscillations will produce energy fields.
I guess you mean infrared (long wavelength) EM/light.
This is about as much as I know:
The atomic bonds of a molecule can be visualized like springs with a unique length and stiffness for its kind of bond. It may hop up-and-down, sideways, wiggle around a bit with unique vibration frequencies.
When a constant flow of infrared light interacts with the molecule* a molecule gets a little kick when the frequencies match and the bonds of a molecule starts to resonate more with each interaction. Such interaction is not enough to knock an electron to some other shell only until it vibrates violently after many interactions and starts to glow with visible light.
*)
(don;t ask me how exactly light differs from mechanical vibration, but at least the wavelength is huge compared to the size of a single atom)
With Raman spectroscopy for example one looks at which frequencies get absorbed so one can determine which bonds exist in some sample. From this one is able to determine the structure of a molecule.
To put it in a single sentence: Light is a directed source (not a field), it depends on the molecular composition if and how it gets absorbed and produces motion, heat is the average of vibrating molecules, vibrating molecules interact with other molecules at contact.