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Nov 16, 2019 · An individual photon passing through water can 1) scatter elastically, 2) scatter inelastically 3) if its frequency coincides with an energy level of the atoms or molecules, it can be absorbed completely. It cannot create waves in the water. S.McGrew has given an answer for coherent light hitting the water.
How can light (or electromagnetic radiation) travel through a vacuum when there is nothing there to act as a medium, and do so forever in all directions? For example the light coming from a star millions of light years away.
Consider a single photon ($\lambda$=532 nm) traveling through a plate of perfect glass with a refractive index $n=1.5$. We know that it does not change its direction or other characteristics in any particular way and propagating 1 cm through such glass is equivalent to 1.5 cm of vacuum.
- Theory of Light in The 19th Century
- Double-Slit Experiment
- Electromagnetism and Special Relativity
- Einstein and The Photon
- Wave-Particle Duality
During the Scientific Revolution, scientists began moving away from Aristotelian scientific theories that had been seen as accepted canon for centuries. This included rejecting Aristotle's theory of light, which viewed it as being a disturbance in the air (one of his four "elements" that composed matter), and embracing the more mechanistic view tha...
By the early 19th century, scientists began to break with corpuscular theory. This was due in part to the fact that corpuscular theory failed to adequately explain the diffraction, interference and polarization of light, but was also because of various experiments that seemed to confirm the still-competing view that light behaved as a wave. The mos...
Prior to the 19th and 20th centuries, the speed of light had already been determined. The first recorded measurements were performed by Danish astronomer Ole Rømer, who demonstrated in 1676 using light measurements from Jupiter's moon Io to show that light travels at a finite speed (rather than instantaneously). By the late 19th century, James Cler...
In 1905, Einstein also helped to resolve a great deal of confusion surrounding the behavior of electromagnetic radiation when he proposed that electrons are emitted from atoms when they absorb energy from light. Known as the photoelectric effect, Einstein based his idea on Planck's earlier work with "black bodies" – materials that absorb electromag...
Subsequent theories on the behavior of light would further refine this idea, which included French physicist Louis-Victor de Broglie calculating the wavelength at which light functioned. This was followed by Heisenberg's "uncertainty principle" (which stated that measuring the position of a photon accurately would disturb measurements of it momentu...
Apr 10, 2022 · Water waves require water to travel in. The sound waves we hear, to give another example, are pressure disturbances that require air to travel though. But electromagnetic waves do not require water or air: the fields generate each other and so can move through a vacuum (such as outer space).
Non-Absorption (Pass Through) Photons may pass through an atom and maintain the same energy and direction, even if it appears to coincide with the electron’s path. In this case, the photon is not absorbed by the electron.
Jun 16, 2020 · The ceramic can be either rod-shaped or cone-shaped, but the researchers note cone-shaped ceramics allow for finer and more accurate localized heating, as the tip can be reduced to about 10 μm. Almost 100% of the photon energy passes through the ceramic to the tip, which is doped with a special element for heat generation.
