Comment on What is the significance of a wave NOT changing its energy at diffraction?
BlackJerseyGiant@lemmy.world 6 days ago
When a physical wave loses forward momentum, it typically gains amplitude. This conserves the energy of the wave at a lower speed.
Light waves don’t really lose speed, so loss of energy would be seen as a lower frequency.
vivalapivo@lemmy.today 6 days ago
This is nonsense. To change the frequency, you need highly nonlinear medium (like Raman mechanism in Ethidium bromide) or herald the wave pack, which is not something you probably had in mind.
kbobabob@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 days ago
Hello red shift?
vivalapivo@lemmy.today 6 days ago
Oh right I forgot to mention another effect that could be observed at high velocities (thousands of km/a for visible light), escaping a gravitational well, or when you expand the space itself. Sorry.
BlackJerseyGiant@lemmy.world 6 days ago
Nonsense? To the contrary, this is the answer to OPs question “What would diffracted light waves look like if they did change their energy at diffraction?” The light waves would change frequency if they lost or gained energy as the amount of energy carried by a photon is directly proportional to it’s electromagnetic frequency and is inversely proportional to it’s wavelength. So, Photon plus or minus energy equals frequency and wavelength change. Sensible, no?
vivalapivo@lemmy.today 6 days ago
Nope. Photon energy and the energy of waves are different energies: connected, but not interchangeable.