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Is it possible to have solid light?

If so, what would it be like?

Qmechanic
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Featherball
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2 Answers2

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No because solid is a state of matter. Light cannot be considered matter since it is made up of particles which have no mass and I'm pretty sure occupy no space (i.e. photons have no volume).

Edit: Since photons are at the quantum level, we can't actually fathom what it would mean for them to occupy space. But on this thread someone pointed out that there is a sort of photon density limit. Although this still does not mean that they occupy space, and it doesn't mean that they don't.

Community
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M Barbosa
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  • I do not understand the comment about occupying no space. How is a photon different than, say an electron in that aspect? I also do not understand the mention of "to be on the quantum level". Again how is that different from electrons, protons and neutrons? – untreated_paramediensis_karnik Apr 09 '18 at 10:37
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This depends upon how you want light to solid. If you want light to be solid in the way the "Star Wars" movies have light sabers, I would say no. There are however materials that trap photons so they have zero velocity. Photons are in a sense trapped, and these are sometimes called artificial black holes. The energy of the photons then contribute a tiny amount of mass to the material trapping them.

Lawrence B. Crowell
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    Although calling those materials 'artificial black holes' will likely lead to much confusion amongst those that don't dig deeply in to the topic before wildly extrapolating... – Jon Custer Jun 10 '16 at 14:54