Timeline for Explanation of consistency between Maxwell's equations and the existence of photons
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
8 events
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| Jul 14, 2018 at 22:14 | vote | accept | FourierFlux | ||
| May 2, 2018 at 19:10 | comment | added | anna v | The photon in the present standard model of particle physics is an elementary point particle with zero mass and spin 1. Classical light is a wavefront of zillions of photons , each a point particle . Look at this answer physics.stackexchange.com/questions/386905/… | |
| May 2, 2018 at 18:24 | comment | added | FourierFlux | Thanks, does a photon have a definite size/length? Basically I think I understand the probabilistic argument but what I don't understand is if a Photon is itself a discrete entity in space? I'm trying to make the bridge between discrete and continuous. For example when EM radiation hits something, does the radiation hit at a finite number of points consisting of the photons that makeup the light? Could maxwells equations be kind of thought of as a continuous ideal of a limit of discontinuous functions but given scale that continuous ideal works? | |
| May 2, 2018 at 18:09 | comment | added | anna v | The photon follows a probabilistic quantum mechanical path, such that in superposition with zillions of others of the same energy, they build up the classical wave ,their energy being = h*nu, where nu is the frequency of the light built up. The complex conjugate of the photon wave function multiplied by the wave function builds up the classical electric field. ( in the illustration the red arrow is the classical electric field, the most probable manifestation of the zillions of photons | |
| May 2, 2018 at 17:08 | comment | added | FourierFlux | Ooops, by wave equation I meant maxwells equations can be solved for producing a wave. | |
| May 2, 2018 at 16:58 | comment | added | FourierFlux | Ok thanks, classically the wave equation can be solved for in free space, if you have a perfect spherical radiator you can view it as spheres moving outward from the radiator. In the photon description, are the photons uniformly spaced going out in all directions like the EM wave? Like when talking about a photon, does it have a single specific direction and velocity? Or can a photon go in all directions at once? | |
| May 2, 2018 at 12:30 | history | edited | anna v | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| May 2, 2018 at 7:49 | history | answered | anna v | CC BY-SA 4.0 |