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? asked in Science & MathematicsPhysics · 9 years ago

Light Waves and Photons?

Im not a student, just somebody who likes to learn.

Im reading a beginners book on physics, and Im trying to visualize the light waves and also the double slit experiment. Ive read every source I could find on the internet, but kind of unsure if Im visualizing the right thing.

Would I visualize photons moving through the electromagnetic waves? Do the photons move from point A to B?

Help me visualize this. Sorry if the question Im asking sounds stupid or completely wrong.

Update:

Thanks.

Im actually not a student, Im reading, and understanding for the most part, String Theory for Dummies.

4 Answers

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  • hello
    Lv 6
    9 years ago
    Favorite Answer

    I would try to keep photons and electromagnetic waves separate in your mind. The double slit experiment illustrates the wave property of light. Waves can interfere and cancel. It is very hard to visualize this in terms of particles. How can one particle hit one slit and another the other slit and they cancel out at some distance from the slits ?? How can a wave hitting one slit produce two photons at the double slits ?? Interference effects show the wave nature of light. Other effects like the photoelectric effect show the particle(photon) nature of light.

  • 9 years ago

    Visualize ripples on a pond. They are made up of water molecules oscillating up down (transverse) as groups to form the ripples.

    So it is for the group waves of photons. The waves are three D transverse waves rather than two D like the ripples, but other than that, the photons are like the molecules and they oscillate as a group as they move along at light speed.

    Photons also have individual wave functions. That's why we can get what looks like interference patterns on the split slit experiment even though we push one photon at a time through the slits. (And yes, we can do that.) Wave function really aren't waves at all. They are probability density functions that identify where in time and space a photon is most likely to be found.

    So, no, the photons are not going through the EM waves...they are the EM waves, the constituents of them. And yes, photons move from point A to point B; they must move or cease to exist as photons.

  • 9 years ago

    Consider the medium through which the energy is moved. Like water for example. I can make the boat across the lake rock back and forth without touching it with anything. Its just an energy wave transmitted throught the water. I can also hit the boat with a rock, wich is not an energy wave but an object. In the case of the atom energy is released in discrete amounts as waves or particles or even booth. And yes you are a student and its a good question.

    Source(s): Chemist
  • ?
    Lv 4
    5 years ago

    solar generates easy subsequently of thermonuclear reactions as is the case with each of the celebs. the quantity or the density of photons falling on a floor count on the area from the solar. The solar isn't the comparable whilst considered from right here on earth or on Pluto. there's no longer something staggering with regard to the quantity of photons emitted because it consistent with a action picture star of solar's magnitude.

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