Deviant Light Behavior

[NOOBIE]

Other field and waves of either part .. Electric or Magnetic form aggregate or net effects .. while Light doesn't seem to (significantly) share this behavior (AFAIK).

 

Why?

 

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A bit more to explain this concept I'm curious about.

 

Put multiple magnetic sources near each other .. they interact and form a net or aggregate single Magnetic effect .. Same thing with multiple electric sources ... the result is a net or aggregate effect.

 

The Electronic and Magnetic fields of the electro-magnetic wave of light seem to (mostly) not exhibit this behavior to any significant degree .. AFAIK... Multiple light waves in the same region don't form a net or aggregate single light wave .. as either electric or magnetic do... as if the magnetic portion of light mostly just ignores other magnetic sources .. and the electric portion of light mostly ignores other electric sources.

 

Any insights and such would be appreciated.

Thanks

 

[swansont]

Other field and waves of either part .. Electric or Magnetic form aggregate or net effects .. while Light doesn't seem to (significantly) share this behavior (AFAIK).

 

Why?

 

- - -

 

A bit more to explain this concept I'm curious about.

 

Put multiple magnetic sources near each other .. they interact and form a net or aggregate single Magnetic effect .. Same thing with multiple electric sources ... the result is a net or aggregate effect.

 

The Electronic and Magnetic fields of the electro-magnetic wave of light seem to (mostly) not exhibit this behavior to any significant degree .. AFAIK... Multiple light waves in the same region don't form a net or aggregate single light wave .. as either electric or magnetic do... as if the magnetic portion of light mostly just ignores other magnetic sources .. and the electric portion of light mostly ignores other electric sources.

 

Any insights and such would be appreciated.

Thanks

 

 

You've never had the experience of some light sources being brighter than others? I find that hard to believe. If not, though, go to the brightness setting on your computer screen and change it (I'm going to assume you turn it up). There's an example of EM waves obeying the principle of superposition and getting stronger.

 

They don't form a single wave, because that's not possible for an incoherent source, but that's also an artifact of trying to compare a static system with a dynamic one. The former doesn't have a frequency spectrum, and all that entails.

[NOOBIE]

 

You've never had the experience of some light sources being brighter than others? I find that hard to believe. If not, though, go to the brightness setting on your computer screen and change it (I'm going to assume you turn it up). There's an example of EM waves obeying the principle of superposition and getting stronger.

 

They don't form a single wave, because that's not possible for an incoherent source, but that's also an artifact of trying to compare a static system with a dynamic one. The former doesn't have a frequency spectrum, and all that entails.

 

Maybe I'm just not seeing it ?? .. but I don't see the connection between what your describing and what I was asking about ??

 

If my screen were emitting a magnetic field / or some wavelike flux of that field .. and the room had some other magnetic field / flux .. AFAIK there is only 1 net aggregate Magnetic effect experienced ... No matter how many sources , angles, magnitudes , or how incoherent all those various magnetic sources are , etc , etc .. same goes for electric sources .. etc.

 

AFAIK this same difference still happens .. even if the magnetic or electric is in flux , and all the multiple sources are changing .. still only one net aggregate effect .. it doesn't have to be static at all.

 

The magnetic portion of the electro-magnetic wave doesn't seem to care (significantly) if it's traveling past a magnet .. or near a voltage .. it's magnetic component and electrical component seems to ignore the other magnetic and electrical sources .. something that doesn't happen in other magnetic interactions .. Specifically in my question here the magnetic and electrical aspect of other light waves in close proximity to each other .. Photon 1 and Photon 2 .. to Photon n.

 

Said another way:

Why doesn't magnetic component of Photon x effect/interact with magnetic component of Photon y ?.. any other two magnetic effects would .. why don't they for light's ? .. and the same for electrical component... It's like two magnets getting near each other but never having any interaction repulsion or attraction as they get closer and closer... Light's behavior does not seem to be the normal behavior for other magnetism ..same for electrical .. yet it is both.

[swansont]

 

Said another way:

Why doesn't magnetic component of Photon x effect/interact with magnetic component of Photon y ?.. any other two magnetic effects would .. why don't they for light's ? .. and the same for electrical component... It's like two magnets getting near each other but never having any interaction repulsion or attraction as they get closer and closer... Light's behavior does not seem to be the normal behavior for other magnetism ..same for electrical .. yet it is both.

 

They do. The fields add or subtract for light. The net effect is an increase or decrease in the amplitude of the field. The intensity — how bright it is — is related to the square of that amplitude. More photons gives you brighter light, because there is a larger E and B field.

 

Fields don't attract or repel fields, they attract or repel charges. So it's no surprise that photons would not attract or repel like charges or magnets, because a photon is uncharged.

[NOOBIE]

 

They do. The fields add or subtract for light. The net effect is an increase or decrease in the amplitude of the field. The intensity — how bright it is — is related to the square of that amplitude. More photons gives you brighter light, because there is a larger E and B field.

 

Fields don't attract or repel fields, they attract or repel charges. So it's no surprise that photons would not attract or repel like charges or magnets, because a photon is uncharged.

 

Thanks .. that makes more sense (to me) .. Does that mean than that:

If n number of different wavelengths (for example 100) of light were crossing the same region ... that in that shared region there would also be one net aggregate of all the adding and subtracting of each .. like Electricity and Magnetism do ?

 

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Regarding the other .. AFAIK .. In electricity .. the electric field (volts) .. does by itself indicate weather there is an attraction or repulsion .. With additional information (distance, orientation,etc) ... including the power/energy of those electric fields one can calculate the total amount of power/energy of that attraction or repulsion... one way to determine that power/energy is by using the intermediate steps of Amps/Ah (Rate of charges and total number of charges) .. but it can also be calculated based on the total electric power/energy Watts/Wh without using the intermediate step of Amps/Ah.

 

Light doesn't have amps or Ah of charge per se ... but we don't need that intermediate step sense we do know it's Power/Energy other ways without Amps or Ah .. and part of light is isn't electric potential field (volts) waveform .. technically a variable voltage with the waveform , but still a voltage .. Would that than allow us to calculate the (electric based) attraction / repulsion of Photon A to Photon B at any given time of their electric waveforms ?

 

Maybe using methods something like the attraction and repulsion of a roughly equal electric field wave form of the same voltage wavelength frequency etc .. etc. ??

[Sensei]

The simplest calculations can be done with monochrome light source like laser.

 

Say we have source with wavelength 532 nm (middle of visible spectrum), green photon has energy E=h*f=h*c/wavelength = 6.62607004*10^-34 * 299792458 / 532 *10^-9 = ~3.734*10^-19 J = ~2.33 eV energy.

If you have 1 W power light source, and no loss, 1 W / 3.734*10^-19 J = 2.678*10^18 photons emitted per second.

For lights made of multiple wavelengths, you need to sum the all photons the all energies together.

For perfect white light no wavelength/frequency/energy is significant than others (otherwise it would be slightly tinted = more photons quantity).

 

Photons passing through some liquids and solids can rotate their polarization.

Example of such is sugar dissolved in water.

If you have polarization filter, point it at LCD monitor screen (not all models, f.e. one my smartphone do, other doesn't), and start spinning.

You can see that at some angle it's entire black. Spin further to +-90 degree, and it's fully visible.

Polarization filter reflects photons with certain polarization, while passing through the rest.

So in extreme idealized situation,

whole beam is reflected, and nothing pass through (and black color on filter),

or whole beam pass through, and nothing is reflected (filter transparent).

 

Photons with same polarization have the same direction of E/B vectors in classical physics.

 

I showed how polarization filters works with polarized photons in this thread

http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/80366-particle-location/page-3#entry783255

So you can see it on your own eyes (photos).

 

Reflective materials, often can change polarization of photons.

Take container with water, polarization filter.

Look through polarization filter at water surface at some angle, start spinning. You will see that reflection is appearing/disappearing (and you can more easily see what is beneath of water surface).

Edited November 8, 2015 by Sensei