All Questions
36
questions
2
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0
answers
31
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Behavior of a single emitted photon [duplicate]
Suppose you have a transmitter sending out a single photon. If you think about this photon as a wave, you will see a circular wave moving away from the transmitter. Over millennia, this wave spreads ...
- 379
-2
votes
1
answer
87
views
Why does there need to be a particle representation of light?
Why does there need to be a particle representation of light? Doesn't light as a wave explained the observations of the photoelectric perfectly? When the frequency of light is increased, the speed of ...
-1
votes
1
answer
70
views
Does this explanation of wave-particle duality correspond with any existing formal explanation?
Imagine a tsunami wave. Out at sea, it slowly raises the water level not more than a few inches or feet, and passes by standing boats with barely any resultant turbulence. It moves very fast, but it's ...
- 109
1
vote
0
answers
134
views
Feynman's view about light
Professor Feynman, in his “QED: The strange theory of light and matter”, states at page 15:
“I want to emphasize that light comes in this form - particles. It is very important to know that light ...
- 53
8
votes
2
answers
2k
views
Failure of Newton's corpuscular theory and success of photon theory of light
Corpuscular theory of light States that:
Light is made up of small discrete particles called "corpuscles" (little particles) which travel in a straight line with a finite velocity.
...
- 267
6
votes
2
answers
339
views
Where is a photon in space relative to the wave?
In electromagnetics you learn that an electromagnetic wave is a perturbation of the electric and magnetic fields that propagate in space according to the wave equation.
This makes sense when you are ...
- 161
5
votes
5
answers
998
views
What is light, a wave or a particle or A wave-particle? [duplicate]
What is light?
And how do we know that light is an electromagnetic wave?
I asked my teacher and he said that when you place a compass in light's path, the needle of the compass rotates. Which I think ...
- 69
1
vote
3
answers
188
views
Why move photons straight ahead and do not move wave like?
A single photon can be seen as a wave. Normally, waves move in all direction. So one could expect a photon to form a spherical wave. But a photon moves straight on, only in one direction.
Is there any ...
- 120
2
votes
1
answer
131
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What kind of waves are photons? [duplicate]
whenever I heard of the "wave-particle" duality of photons, I always thought they existed as a weird combination of physical waves and particles.
Since finding about De Broglie wavelengths ...
- 1,581
1
vote
4
answers
3k
views
How can an electromagnetic wave behave as a particle?
Light is an electromagnetic wave and it possess both properties of a particle and wave.
Looking at the image I can imagine how it behaves like a wave.
However, I'm not sure how it can behave like ...
3
votes
1
answer
209
views
What is the connection between the Planck-Einstein Relationship and the Average Intensity of an electromagnetic wave?
This is probably a silly question, and likely reflects a poor understanding, in general, of electromagnetic radiation, but here goes anyway:
I have encountered two equations that I am struggling to ...
- 125
1
vote
2
answers
89
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Is A Photon A Wave Or Does It Emit/Create A Wave?
In my search for more clarification about photons being a wave or particle, I found a response here Photon's create waves that said that photons don't become a wave but rather create a wave. This ...
8
votes
5
answers
2k
views
What is the cross-section size of a photon?
How "wide" is a photon, if any, of its electromagnetic fields? Is there any physical length measurement of these two orthogonal fields, $E$ and $M$, from the axis of travel? When a photon hits a ...
- 318
-1
votes
1
answer
58
views
Confused on intensity of light
If light behaves both as particle and wave at the same time, does it mean intensity (energy) of light depends on the square of its amplitude and at the same time energy of photons doesn't depend on ...
- 1,691
4
votes
2
answers
533
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What does it actually mean for an electron to be excited? [duplicate]
I've been confused on the connection between photons and electrons for a very long time.
Some examples of questions I"ve asked are linked here:
What produces higher frequency light?
Frequency of ...
- 3,075