How can the energy of a photon be calculated with the frequency of light if light is not considered as a wave when it is considered as a particle?
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Light is neither described by a wave alone or a particle alone. It has both aspects. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wave%E2%80%93particle_duality – Avantgarde Jan 24 '19 at 06:40
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At the same time? – Mad Dawg Jan 24 '19 at 06:40
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Yes, though in some experiments like diffraction or interference, you observe wavelike phenomena while in some others like Compton or photoelectric effect, you observe particle behavior. – Avantgarde Jan 24 '19 at 06:42
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Okay pls tell me one more thing, when maxwell performed the experiment in which he found that a body heated to incandescent gives out energy discontinuosuly and not continuously, why did he say that energy travels in small bundles(quantum), couldn't it be it like that the heated body gave out waves of certain energy discontinuosuly? – Mad Dawg Jan 24 '19 at 06:45
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Planck, not Maxwell, realized blackbodies emit quantized bundles of energy. – G. Smith Jan 24 '19 at 06:57
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Yeah plank, sorry – Mad Dawg Jan 24 '19 at 06:58
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Even particles like electrons have wavelength and frequency. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matter_wave – G. Smith Jan 24 '19 at 07:00
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Yeah I get that now, but please clear my planks question – Mad Dawg Jan 24 '19 at 07:03
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I don’t think Planck was focused on whether the energy emission was more wave-like or more particle-like. He was focused on the fact that assuming it was quantized gave the observed spectral distribution, which was otherwise a mystery. – G. Smith Jan 24 '19 at 07:05
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Okay so it was like he knew that the energy was comming out in quantized form but he did not thought is it a particle or a wave, it was einstein how told light behave as a photon on the account of photoelectric effect – Mad Dawg Jan 24 '19 at 07:08
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Always remember that particles & waves are just partial models, and they are used for describing different aspects. "Light travels like a wave, and interacts like a particle, but really it's a field". – PM 2Ring Jan 24 '19 at 09:08
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1I think this other Physics Stack Exchange question might help. – DanielSank Jan 24 '19 at 16:46
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The present standard model of particle physics has the photon as one of the basic particles. The mathematical theory is quantum electrodynamics.
Light is very well modeled with Maxwell's equations , the classical theory of light. The two though are connected mathematically. The photon is described by a wavefunction which is the solution of a quantized version of Maxwell's equations.
Quantization introduces the E and B fields in the complex wavefunction and is the way that the frequency observed in the classical light is connected with the energy of the photon at a mathematical level.
There exists a mathematical derivatiion of how the classical light emerges from the zillions of photons in quantum electrodynamics here . The classical light emerges from the superposition of the wavefunctions of the zillions of photons.
The classical theory is very successful in fitting light behavior and predicting new set ups in a clean way that it is not necessary to refer to the collective QED behavior.
anna v
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The best answer perhaps is that We know experimentally that the ene gy of a photon is h*nu We know that the photon is to be described in a counter-intuitive way to account for the experiments. And no one knows why nature is behaving in this absurd way.
