i just study in year 10 and might not have enough knowledge about these stuff. But what i studied in physics is a photon hits a surface and is reflected to our eyes and see what photon is reflected from. Now if we see what it is reflected from it must mean that the photon is carrying information of it. photons even give us colour so it must have something to do with wavelength. But when wave hits our eyes the wave must collapse and become a particle . Now how does information of colour be described by particle as a particle has no wavelength to describe colour. so does particle have any property to describe colour..
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3$\begingroup$ Yes, the photon has energy that is directly proportional to frequency. $\endgroup$– safesphereCommented Dec 5, 2017 at 23:28
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1$\begingroup$ Yes individual photons oscillate at certain frequencies. The faster the frequency the higher the energy. Our eyes have evolved to receive and transform this energy into information. Each photon carries information such as direction, speed, frequency, energy, polarization, etc. $\endgroup$– Bill AlseptCommented Dec 6, 2017 at 9:33
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2 Answers
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light from the sun contains a mixture of photons which have wavelengths corresponding to all colors we can see. when this light hits an object, some colors are reflected to our eyes and some other colors are are absorbed. so if red photons are reflected and all else is absorbed, the object appears red to our eyes. in this way, the reflected light is "encoded" with the information about what wavelengths were reflected and which were absorbed.
also note that when that red photon strikes the retina nerves in the back of your eyeball, it is not converted into a particle. instead, it is absorbed and triggers a brief chemical change inside a nerve cell in the retina, which generates an electrical impulse or "nerve signal" which is conducted to the part of your brain what processes signals from your eyes- and then tells your brain, "that object is red".
This is a very simplified description of a very complicated process, but I hope you can understand it!
answered Dec 6, 2017 at 2:15
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I think you are wrong in assuming that every photon particle is similar to other and there is no way to distinguish different photons. Each photon is characterized by its energy. If two photons have same energy then they are identical. Our eye + brain in some way "counts" the number of photon corresponding to different energies. If let's say that number of photons of a particular energy is very large compared to other energies then our brain will perceive it as the color corresponding to that energy.
The fact that colour is associated with wavelength is not wrong since energy and wavelength are related. What word has to be used depends on the situation. If one is working with particle then energy has to be used and while working in wave picture, wavelength could be used. At the end of the day neither is more fundamental than other. Both are just numbers characterizing different types of photons.
