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/sci/ - Science & Math

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7976022 No.7976022 [Reply] [Original]

I'm extremely confused about light. It's a transverse wave, right? so therefore it must be going through a medium, if so which medium does it travel through (as it travels through vacuums). However I got more confused when reading about photoelectric emission, because the way it was explained in the textbook was individual photons of certain frequencies which carried enough energy to move electrons. If this is the case, then i assume that photons are the waves themselves, as that's the only way an individual thing having a "frequency" makes sense to me. But if this is the case, does it mean that some photons are larger than others due to differences in wavelengths? Pls help me understand this

>> No.7976024

>>7976022
or, this has just occured to me, is it an oscillating particle? so the frequency is the frequency of the oscillation? and the wavelength is caused by the frequency when light is moving through space

>> No.7976031

Photons have mass.
>The closer the object's speed is to light speed, the greater the increase in inertial mass; to reach light speed exactly would require an infinitely strong force acting on the body.
Photons move at light speed.

Something here doesn't add up.

>> No.7976482

>>7976031
Photons have mass-energy.
They have no (and cannot have) rest mass.
Any reference to photon mass is laziness on part of the author on the assumption that the reader understands this.

>> No.7976491

As I understand it, light behaves as both a wave and a particle simultaneously. So it's kind of... both and neither. So the whole mass thing? Just... don't worry about it.

>> No.7976495

>>7976491
Light behaves as either in different situations. Whether it's a wave or particle is just a question of what you're watching it do, and which model makes your life easier.

>> No.7976519

The light "wave" of a single photon is really just the wave of probabilities of where the photon can be

and yes, the photons themselves wiggle up an down as they move(or in a circle)

>> No.7976520

>>7976022
MinutePhysics is pretty much shit IMO but I remember this video breaking down the particle-wave duality in a simple and accessible way.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1TVZIBj7UA

Also a vacuum is devoid only of atoms or molecules, not fields. The same way sound oscillates the air it travels through, light is an oscillation within the elctromagnetic field.

>> No.7976529

>>7976519

Both of these statements are wrong.

>> No.7976563

>>7976529
is that the case? what do you think

>> No.7976573

>>7976563
Not the anon you replied to, but the wave of a photon is literally the electrical ( I think that's the convention, might be the other way round) part of the electromagnetic wave.

So technically it is "wiggling", as it's oscillating along it's amplitude vector.