Standing waves and Photons

Asked Jul 29 '17 at 08:18

Active Jul 30 '17 at 14:54

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There are solutions to Maxwell's Equations called Standing waves, or so I was told here.

If we consider the particle nature of EM waves, what does standing waves mean in terms of photons?

And when electrons excite and then release photons, can these be standing waves? Does that make any sense?

Edit: Most surely, this question is not a duplicate of this. The other question is about the general relationship between EM waves and photons. I want to know about this exact same relationship, but for the case of Standing Waves .

edited Jul 30 '17 at 14:54

asked Jul 29 '17 at 08:18

PhyEnthusiast

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Hi PhyEnthusiast. A standing wave is just the sum of two propagating waves travelling in opposite directions. There is nothing special about standing waves. – John Rennie Jul 30 '17 at 18:17
Are standing waves, photons that don't move?? – PhyEnthusiast Aug 04 '17 at 15:32
No. There is no simple relationship between photons and a light wave. The photon is the unit of energy when a light wave exchanges energy with something else. The idea of light being made up of lots of little balls, i.e. the photons, is appealing but utterly wrong. – John Rennie Aug 04 '17 at 15:37
Do standing waves exchange energy, then? – PhyEnthusiast Aug 04 '17 at 15:38
have a look at Do photons truly exist in a physical sense for more on this. I think this is the closest I've come to an accessible description of what photons are. – John Rennie Aug 04 '17 at 15:41
I just want to ask: can the interactions of standing waves be described as photons? Can excited electrons in an atom release a standing wave? – PhyEnthusiast Aug 04 '17 at 15:49

Standing waves and Photons

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