What is the difference between the reflection of light and the scattering of light?
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Reflection is coherent. – safesphere Jan 14 '18 at 06:48
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Duplicate? https://physics.stackexchange.com/q/18092/104696 – Farcher Jan 14 '18 at 07:17
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Neither of these words are particularly precise and are often used somewhat interchangeably, but "reflexion" almost always means an elastic interaction of light, i.e. one that does not change the frequency / photon energy, with other matter / quantum fields. "Scattering" can mean elastic (e.g. Fresnel, Rayleigh and Mie scattering) or inelastic (e.g. Raman scattering).
The word "reflexion" tends to stand for a particular kind of scattering where the scattered electromagnetic field can be accurately determined by the law of reflexion (equal incidence and reflexion angles) applied to each of the Fourier plane wave wave components of the field individually. In turn, this means that the field / each photon interacts with a region of matter that is many wavelengths wide.
Selene Routley
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I found this video on the internet https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mv_90PC5XKw&ab_channel=TheScienceAsylum which says that all optics is scattering. – Solidification Jan 18 '18 at 00:24
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Scattering is like diffraction, where the trajectory of a photon deviates from a straight path. Reflection is not the same at all. When a photon is absorbed, it transfers energy to an electron. The electron then emits a new and different photon.
Bill Alsept
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