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Questions tagged [electromagnetic-radiation]

Propagating solutions to Maxwell’s equations in classical electromagnetism and real photons in quantum electrodynamics. A superset of thermal-radiation.

18 votes
6 answers
5k views

Have we directly observed the electric component to EM waves?

For example, has anyone has directly observed charges oscillating due to standing EM waves? I am particularly interested because it'd demonstrate that radiation has a transverse electric component to ...
Maximal Ideal's user avatar
8 votes
4 answers
1k views

How can things around us have different colours if they have specific emission spectra?

Objects appear in different colours because they absorb some colours (wavelengths) and reflect or transmit other colours. The colours we see are the wavelengths that are reflected or transmitted. As ...
Golden_Hawk's user avatar
  • 1,064
15 votes
3 answers
2k views

Why don't absorption and emission lines cancel out in our Sun?

I was looking at this answer on why absorption lines and emission lines don't cancel out: An experiment shining light on the material and looking at the reflected spectrum will see absorption ...
macco's user avatar
  • 2,005
54 votes
5 answers
9k views

Are there any theoretical limits on the energy of a photon?

Is there any lower or upper limit on the energy of a photon? i.e. does the mathematical framework we currently use to study photons blow up when a photon surpasses a certain upper limit of energy? (or ...
Hritik Narayan's user avatar
18 votes
1 answer
2k views

Relation between radio waves and photons generated by a classical current

Several questions have been posted on Physics SE regarding the relationship between photons and electromagnetic waves, and several good answers have been given. Some of those questions are listed ...
Chiral Anomaly's user avatar
8 votes
2 answers
3k views

How EM waves are produced by accelerating charged particles?

How the electro-magnetic waves are produced by the accelerating charged particle? Graphical explanations are most welcomed. Is the explanation given by the below mentioned article correct regarding ...
Inquisitive's user avatar
7 votes
6 answers
4k views

What exactly does the *frequency* of a photon mean?

If you emit a single photon, wait an interval, emit a second photon, wait the same interval, and keep repeating, is the resultant stream of photons describable by the frequency at which you emitted ...
argonaut's user avatar
  • 173
311 votes
2 answers
30k views

What is Chirped Pulse Amplification, and why is it important enough to warrant a Nobel Prize?

The 2018 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded recently, with half going to Arthur Ashkin for his work on optical tweezers and half going to Gérard Mourou and Donna Strickland for developing a technique ...
Emilio Pisanty's user avatar
45 votes
4 answers
6k views

Why is Huygens' principle only valid in an odd number of spatial dimensions?

Apparently Huygens' principle is only valid in an odd number of spatial dimensions: https://mathoverflow.net/a/5396/21349 Huygen's principle in curved spacetimes Why is this? [EDIT] This is ...
user avatar
25 votes
1 answer
17k views

What is the relationship between Faraday cage mesh size and attenuation of cell phone reception signals?

This is related to the question how can electromagnetic waves reach a cell phone in faraday cage?, where in the answer it was stated that the holes (=size of the mesh) would need to be smaller than ...
user avatar
17 votes
2 answers
9k views

How does reflection work?

In Newton's model of light as being composed of particles, it's easy to imagine reflection as being the rebounding of individual corpuscles off a surface. However, since light can also behave like a ...
voithos's user avatar
  • 3,439
8 votes
2 answers
2k views

Principle of Reflection on atomic level

This well-observed phenomenon has, besides several others, always been a fascination to me. We are well aware of several theories, experiments, and practical applications of this well-known phenomenon,...
Rijul Gupta's user avatar
  • 5,481
156 votes
1 answer
15k views

What is an "attosecond pulse", and what can you use it for?

The 2023 Nobel Prize in Physics was announced today, and it was awarded to Pierre Agostini, Ferenc Krausz and Anne L’Huillier, for “experimental methods that generate attosecond pulses of light for ...
Emilio Pisanty's user avatar
38 votes
2 answers
29k views

How can wifi penetrate through walls when visible light can't?

I did search the question on Physics S.E considering it would be previously asked. I found this How come Wifi signals can go through walls, and bodies, but kitchen-microwaves only penetrate a few ...
Shashaank's user avatar
  • 2,797
31 votes
1 answer
68k views

Why is black the best emitter?

Why are emitters colored black better emitters than other colors? Why is white a worse emitter?
Brinn Belyea's user avatar

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