All Questions
Tagged with refraction photons
74
questions
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How long will the light exist inside the sphere?
Ok, so let's say we have a very thick, but hollow, metal sphere. The inside of the sphere has a radius of 100 meters. The sphere also has a door that can be opened and closed and when closed makes an ...
0
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How is light slowing down in a medium thought of in the photon picture? [duplicate]
The speed of light in any medium besides vacuum is smaller than $c$. In a classical way, I just look at that as a wave that propagates less fast, the change in EM-field is passed on slower. How should ...
6
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1
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Why does light not slow down?
Clearly light bounces off of things, going really really fast. I'm curious to understand how light interacts with matter in order to bounce without:
Applying force to the object
Losing speed
So my ...
2
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What happens when light is reflected from a surface moving in a medium with a huge refractive index?
Imagine a mirror is moving away from a light source in a substance through which the speed of light is very slow -- so slow that the speed of the mirror is close to being the same as the speed of the ...
2
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Can time pass for a photon if it's moving in a medium? [duplicate]
If time does not pass for a photon traveling at the speed of light, which can only occur when traveling in a vacuum, what happens when it is slowed down by traveling through non vacuum space like ...
2
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3
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Does a high energy photon experience deceleration or direction-change when it impinge into water or something due to the change of refraction index?
Wave experiences refraction when it propagates into another medium which has different refraction index.
Lights surely does experience refraction at the border of mediums which have different ...
11
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Do photons age in a medium?
According to special relativity, time starts to slow down as we increase our speed and eventually stops once we get to the speed of light. By that logic, photons don't age in a vacuum state as, to us, ...
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Why is the speed of light considered as a fundamental constant if its speed changes with medium resulting in refraction? [duplicate]
I know that the speed of light, the universal constant of gravitation and the Planck's constant are considered to be the three fundamental constants of the universe. But, why is speed of light ...
6
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How does sun light after it has passed window's pane still heat me up?
I believe it is so because most of photons' energy has successfully passed the glass. But is it so? And how can I roughly estimate part of light's energy which will pass obstacles like glass?
And how ...
11
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3
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Photon energy - momentum in matter
$E = h\nu$ and $P = h\nu/c$ in vacuum.
If a photon enters water, its frequency $\nu$ doesn't change.
What are its energy and momentum: $h\nu$ and $h\nu/c$ ?
Since part of its energy and momentum have ...
11
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Do photons have acceleration?
Photons travel at the fastest speed in our universe, the speed of light.
Do photons have acceleration?
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Reconciling refraction with particle theory and wave theory
I have searched the web for good answers to why refraction occurs when light moves from one medium to another with different density. I have limited background in physics and want to know if there is ...
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How does a photon travel through glass?
This was discussed in an answer to a related question but I think that it deserves a separate and, hopefully, more clear answer.
Consider a single photon ($\lambda$=532 nm) traveling through a plate ...
85
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What is the mechanism behind the slowdown of light/photons in a transparent medium?
So light travels slower in glass (for example) than in a vacuum. What causes light to slow down? Or: How does it slow down? If light passes through the medium, is it not essentially traveling in the "...